
U.S. Launches over 50 Missiles at Syrian Military Base - plessthanpt05
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-launches-missiles-syrian-base-after-chemical-weapons-attack-n743636
======
Zenst
Well I expect the Doomsday clock will be getting an update soon.

I'm still not convinced that the Chemical Weapons where from Assad or the
Russians attack and the probability of them actually being in a weapons store
the rebels held, to me seems if not equally probable. Mostly from the aspect
that Chemical Weapons in the form of landmine dispersol have been used by ISIS
in Iraq. Now the aspect that such types of weapons as a Chemical Weapon
dispersal is not one we know that well. So an airstrike upon a weapons depot
that had such landmines, could most likely cause the mines to release the
chemical weapon. Many experts have said that an airstrike upon a chemical
weapon store would destroy the chemical weapons. But we are talking about
mines as storage. A factor that may well be overlooked or a large unknown in
how they react to airstrikes.

What we will know eventually is if they fingerprint the chemical weapon in
this Syrian event and compare to that used by ISIS in Iraq then if they are
the same.

So given how Russia and indeed Assad reacts will prove most telling. I also
believe Assad would be totally foolish to use Chemical Weapons, more so with
Russian support and no need to use them. This and already gave them up, via
Russia and again. There was no need for them and they would know the response
if they did, and I don't believe even Russia or Assad would be that silly.

So from that perspective, Trump just updated the Doomsday clock.

~~~
novalis78
Completely agree. It almost seems like there is a set of individuals in the US
gov that have a personal grudge against Assad and have been trying for years
under various administrations to take him out. They don't even seem to
consider the possibility of Islamist involvement.

~~~
flukus
Personal or geopolitical? They probably see removing Assad as removing Russia.

~~~
novalis78
You are right... that makes more sense in its stupidity - maybe some Cold War
leftover that just hates the Russians beyond all measure and reason

------
salimmadjd
Beware of war propaganda. A quick reminder about the first Iraq war and how
they lied about Saddam killing babies and used a PR firm in Congressional
hearing [0] to build public outrage.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lantos#1991_Gulf_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lantos#1991_Gulf_War)

~~~
Neverchange
"Lantos was a strong supporter of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. During the run-up
to the war, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, of which Lantos was co-
chairman, hosted a young Kuwaiti woman identified only as "Nurse Nayirah", who
told of horrific abuses by Iraqi soldiers, including the killing of Kuwaiti
babies by taking them out of their incubators and leaving them to die on the
cold floor of the hospital. These alleged atrocities figured prominently in
the rhetoric at the time about Iraqi abuses in Kuwait. The girl's account was
later challenged by independent human rights monitors.[30]"

"Nurse Nayirah" later turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador
to the United States."

So basically what just happened with the gas attack and all.

~~~
salimmadjd
Yes...this is the same blueprint on Iraq 2, Libya and now Syria. With Syria
they got even better by using social media. Example is the 7 year old who
writes better twitter post than many native English speakers. She writes very
touching yet concise and to the point twitter posts [0]

[0]
[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/world/middleeast/aleppo-t...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/world/middleeast/aleppo-
twitter-girl-syria.html)

~~~
3131s
It's obvious that elements of US government in both parties have been captured
by the business of war, for a long time now. I could argue until I'm blue in
the face about this, but now I'm mostly just tired. These people are twisted
and they need to pay for their crimes. I'll die happy if Bush, Obama, and
Trump all spend the rest of their lives in prison. I don't believe a fucking
thing from any of these bastards, their PR teams, their 'intelligence'
agencies, or their media surrogates.

------
colmvp
I'm confused how this is so much more controversial or scary than the drone
strikes that have occurred over the last number of years by the US that
violated the sovereignty of other countries and resulted in unfortunate death
of civilians. For the record, I'm not trying to compare Obama to Trump but
rather the fact that the US has a long history of exerting its will in a
methodical way, so I'm unclear why this is more... serious? Is it because of
potential ramifications from Russia? I can't quite imagine that they really
want to be involved in a hot war with the US and it's allies.

~~~
clock_tower
It's the Russian ramifications -- not least because of the Russians' "firehose
of falsehood" media
([http://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html](http://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html)).
Russia's initial response here suggests that Putin won't dare to start a
nuclear war, if it comes down to that (in Lithuania, for example); but talk is
cheap, and he and his minions certainly know how to talk a good game.

~~~
czep
Certainly Putin wouldn't dare to announce "hey I'm going to start a nuclear
war, ok?" However, an ICBM launched from a sub in the Atlantic would reach NYC
in, well, less time that it would take for the guys watching the early warning
radar scopes to get in touch with the President. There would be no hard
evidence linking the source of the attack. With Manhattan pulverized, the US
thrown into total chaos, what's Trump going to do? A response would bring
total war and the destruction of everything. Both Trump and Putin know this.
Trump would have to accept the loss of one city. The US would effectively be
off the world stage forever. Putin just may risk this in order to stop the US
from meddling in his affairs once and for all. Dr. Strangelove, except orders
given by the Kremlin.

Anyone find this plausible or should I turn off the computer and go to sleep?

~~~
nostrademons
You really think that Russia could nuke NYC and it wouldn't invite a
retaliation? It's trivially easy to identify it as Russia - the only other
countries that could do it are Britain & France (our allies) and China (who
has no motive as of yet, and can just barely reach NYC with land-based ICBMs).
There's no way that Trump is would let a nuclear attack on a U.S. city go
unpunished, and so his very next step would be to nuke Moscow. From there, the
countries have a showdown: either they continue retaliating and that's the end
of life on earth as we know it, or they let it stop at one city and both
countries have their most populous city reduced to rubble.

Both countries know this, which is why neither Trump or Putin are going to
launch the missiles.

~~~
mamaniscalco
And exactly why the President has ordered this action (presumably). There are
those who have demonstrated that they have no such restraints. They, Assad
included, are the wild card that threaten long term stability.

------
narrator
Does the all run on autopilot? It's like this stuff was on the timeline no
matter who got elected. They've been deploying all over the South China Sea
and Eastern Europe and it all went along smoothly on autopilot right through
the election and transition.

~~~
Trundle
I don't think it's fair to say "no matter who got elected". There are minor
political parties that are all about non-interventionism. "no matter who got
elected out of the major parties" is more accurate.

~~~
flycaliguy
There are also sets of volcanos on this planet which can effect weather. So
perhaps a more accurate statement would be "no matter who got elected out of
the major parties along + no volcanic activity."

~~~
Trundle
Those volcanoes aren't the result of voter actions though so I think it's
reasonable to not point them out.

The comment I'm responding to makes it sound like this stuff is beyond
democracy and voters have no choice. That's not true at all. Voters just
consider bombing others to be an important activity.

------
Tycho
If it turns out not to have been an Assad attack then all those in the US
government/military who pushed for escalation should walk the plank.

------
abetusk
Right now this post is ~1 hour old and 88 points yet is nowhere to be seen on
the front page. Did this post get forcibly removed?

~~~
dhbanes
It was on the front page for about 20 minutes before it started sinking
rapidly. Perhaps it was reflexively flagged by users for some reason or
perhaps the mods buried it intentionally.

~~~
Zancarius
Doesn't HN automatically flag/throttle articles if its heuristics detect a
possible flamewar or potentially hot button issue? I might be misremembering
this.

~~~
dhbanes
Perhaps, but if you look at the comments from the original submission, there
is little evidence of a flame war brewing.

~~~
Zancarius
True. I do wonder if it may auto-flag rapidly rising submissions as part of
astroturfing prevention or similar?

(Flamewar was a bad example, I admit. Sorry about that.)

------
ourmandave
We notified the Russians ahead of the strike. No Russian hardware was harmed
in the making of this missile strike.

~~~
graycat
IIRC there is also a report that no Russians were at the target of the attack.

------
JumpCrisscross
Hypothesis: this is a message to Xi and North Korea. Syria is a consequence-
free zone. Unless we depose Assad and commit to nation building, this has
limited non-humanitarian consequence. Bonus: decisive action right after
McMasters consolidated Bannon's NSC influence.

~~~
flukus
What's the warning supposed to be? "Don't do anything while we're bogged down
in the middle east for another decade"?

------
AnimalMuppet
And yet just today Rand Paul told Trump not to take unilateral military
action, that he needed to clear it with Congress first. (Maybe Trump briefed
them. Maybe that's good enough, but I think the idea was that Congress needed
to have a chance to vote.)

~~~
jasonkostempski
Political idiot here, is that like threatening your parents that you'll hold
your breath until you get your way or are there actual checks and balances at
play?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Yes and no.

Only Congress has the power to declare war. That's the actual check and
balance. But if I understand correctly, in a situation like this[1], the
President has authority to authorize military force. He just can't continue to
use it for more than 90 days (in the same situation) without congressional
approval[2].

But no, Republicans in Congress are not going to magically force Trump to un-
fire the missiles. Nor are they going to impeach him over this. (If he
violates the 90 day limit, it is somewhat more likely that there will be some
kind of action, but still far from certain.)

[1] For some value of "like this" \- a situation where, in the President's
judgment, military action is urgently needed, where it can't wait for days or
weeks while Congress debates and goes through all the procedural motions.

[2] The 90 day limit is there because the Vietnam War came out of a situation
like this - a presidentially-authorized use of force that never was a declared
war, that turned into nearly a decade of US involvement and 55,000 US dead.

------
ProfessorLayton
These situations are always unfortunate.

The U.S. does nothing: Innocent people continue to die

The U.S. does something: Innocent people die (It is war, after all)

Whats worse, is what'll happen when one of the strikes inadvertently hits some
of Russia's troops?

Whats the solution to all this?

~~~
danharaj
It would have been nice if the US hadn't been a direct actor or accomplice in
every destabilizing event in the middle east for the past 50 years. isis and
the civil war did not emerge out of the vacuum.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I'm not sure that the civil war in Syria comes from US intervention, or even
from ISIS. ISIS tried to take advantage of an existing situation, which was
triggered by Assad's brutality to (initially non-violent) protests of his
regime.

~~~
cup
Iraq --> Syria

~~~
clock_tower
It was Assad's brutal suppression of protests that started the civil war; ISIS
(formerly al-Qaida in Iraq, formerly Tawhid wa-Jihad) moved into the east once
it was under way.

~~~
danharaj
Who knows how the war would have gone without isis in the picture?

~~~
clock_tower
I don't think it would've been very different. There would have probably been
an Islamist insurgency in that region anyways (Sunnis in arms, especially
against secular rulers, tend to be Islamist these days), and it would've
probably been about equal to ISIS in ability: less of ISIS' evil "star power",
but more military ability since they wouldn't have everyone on the planet
bombing them.

~~~
danharaj
You say there would have been an insurgency anyway, but daesh was precisely
the insurgency that formed from the conditions that made it favorable for such
an insurgency to form. These ideologies always exist in a latent form, but
they take socioeconomic upheaval to turn into a self sustaining rupture in the
political order. The United States both in the short term and the long term
has incubated these movements with its ill planned policies and wars.

Like, coordinating coups and dropping bombs over and over again tends to have
that effect.

~~~
clock_tower
DAESH/ISIS didn't form in the civil war; they renamed themselves that, but
they already existed as al-Qaida in Iraq. A native east-Syrian Islamist
insurgency would probably have been more benign; they certainly wouldn't have
had eight years of war with the US to refine their tactics, write _The
Management of Savagery_ , develop a webzine, and so on.

------
plessthanpt05
"THE US has launched a massive cruise missile strike against Syria – despite a
warning from Russia not to get involved."

[http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/603497/trump-
syr...](http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/603497/trump-syria-strike-
russia-military-action-chemical-weapons-gas-attack-putin-assad-WW3)

~~~
dbcooper
Dude, you can do better than the Daily Star!

~~~
plessthanpt05
Yeah, I had never heard of it before, so wasn't sure of it's reputation &
whether or not to post it. (...guess not)

~~~
selimthegrim
There's a Lebanese newspaper with the same name with a very good rep

------
earthtolazlo
This is bad. This is very bad.

~~~
flukus
Is this how WW3 starts?

~~~
PhilWright
Just a slight overreaction on your part. Just about every President has
launched punitive strikes against targets for bad behavior. None led to WW3.

~~~
flukus
How many of them were under the protection of Russia?

~~~
johndevor
[citation needed]

~~~
AnimalMuppet
[http://www.politico.eu/article/russia-says-support-for-
syria...](http://www.politico.eu/article/russia-says-support-for-syria-not-
unconditional/)

(Dated today.)

------
ralmidani
As a Syrian-American who voted for Clinton, I am incredibly happy that Trump
has shown resolve where Obama failed to. This may not directly cause the
downfall of the abominable Assad regime, but at least it will make Assad think
twice before using chemical weapons again. Hopefully, it will be followed by
safe zones and arming the Free Syrian Army.

~~~
3131s
This is nothing new though, Obama committed extensive bombing in Syria too.
Obama's initial reason for involvement was alleged chemical weapons. I don't
see how this qualifies as direct action while everything else we've been doing
there for the past 5+ years is not. Still, that's not to say this isn't
horrible.

Here's a reminder for people of what Obama was up to:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13595999](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13595999)

------
locusm
Its funny what crosses Americas red line, US forces killing over 200 civs in
Mosul the other day didnt warrant much outrage.

~~~
afarrell
US forces, or US-backed forces? And was the killing deliberate, or just
avoidably collateral?

When judging crimes, intent matters. EDIT: Even if you wish it wasn't.

~~~
locusm
Intent matters, but so does negligence & incompetence.

------
ddingus
FUCK

Sorry all. That is what I felt on reading this. We just don't need war.

------
holydude
I as an eastern european am really grateful for US interventions. Better dead
than red.

------
mythrwy
<comment deleted since people are apparently going to down vote without
reading and I'm not interested in ill thought out flame wars based on
superficial party affiliation>

~~~
ForrestN
Sincere question: how did you find such professions credible given how
frequently and baldly Trump lied about basically everything? In other words,
how can anyone be surprised by this or any other lie he tells?

~~~
mythrwy
Credible? Who wasn't lying?

But you know what, I come to this site for tech and science type things. But a
large contingent appear to be bent on using it for a political platform. My
opinion is they are badly damaging the site. I've tried to register my opinion
on things or talk about topics in what I perceive to be an objective manner
only to be trolled, flamed and down-voted into oblivion. At this point I'm not
going to bother with anything remotely political. If people want to make
another ideology bubble fine. It's just not worth the struggle at this point.

------
clock_tower
Wonderful news! Finally, someone standing up to Assad and Putin! Who would
have thought it would be the US president who Putin "absolutely didn't" put
into office?

~~~
kafkaesq
_Wonderful news! Finally, someone standing up to Assad and Putin!_

Except for the fact that the move indicates nothing less than complete and
utter chaos in his stance vis-a-vis Russia. And that it remains to be seen how
Putin will decide to "stand up" for his symbolic ally in response.

~~~
douche
What I am not sure I understand is why anyone cares what happens in Syria,
save maybe Israel. It's not an oil producer, and it has been a shitshow,
rather than a regional power for 20+ years.

~~~
clock_tower
Human rights more than anything else; Assad's response to the Arab Spring was
a pretty ugly one, especially by the standards of people who weren't
overthrown. (The other issue is that Russia really likes that naval base.
Wouldn't it have saved time to just give them the city and get them to stop
interfering with the rest of this?)

------
sandworm101
Fifty missiles, in an area where US aircraft can operate unfettered if they so
choose, seems like a statement that one side doesn't want to risk its own
people.

Even the US has limits. There are only so many Tomahawks ready to go. 59+ is a
significant reduction in that number. They won't do this again as I doubt they
could mount a third such salvo. They need to keep a substantial number of
missiles in reserve for taking out air defences in support of a broader air
war or special forces operation. The next "message" will therefore come via
manned aircraft. That's where things between the Russians and the US get
tricky. There is only so much airspace over syria.

~~~
maxerickson
Are you sure? There are 62 destroyers that can launch them:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-
class_destroyer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer)

(among other ships capable of launching them)

Of course they aren't all deployed in the Middle East and won't each have 90
of the missiles ready to go, but 50 doesn't seem like a huge stretch of
capabilities.

There are numerous attacks of more than 150 missiles and several thousand
available (which I agree doesn't necessarily mean they are all ready for use):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile)#United_Stat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_\(missile\)#United_States_Navy)

~~~
sandworm101
But how many are actually there today? The fleet must keep in reserve enough
missiles to address more pressing issues. Take the 60 missiles to take out a
single airport. They probably want to keep twice that many in case they want
to strike another airport, perhaps a Russian base. So 60 empty tubes, plus 120
ready to attack another base. Then how many do they need to take out all the
air defences should a wider air war start? And then all the deep targets that
they wouldn't want to risk manned aircraft to reach during the first wave. Say
there are 5 ships x 50 missiles, that's only 250 to spread across all those
missions.

I;m interested in how many ships actually fired. Whether one ship fires
all/most of them, or whether the tasking was spread amongst the fleet, speaks
to the potential timeline. If it all came from one ship, and that ship is now
racing back to port to rearm, that says to me that they expect to do this
again sooner rather than later as that would get the fleet back to full
capacity more quickly than waiting for many ships to rotate out.

~~~
Zancarius
There's reports of 2 destroyers [1]: USS _Porter_ and USS _Ross_.

[1] [https://news.usni.org/2017/04/06/breaking-u-s-destroyers-
fir...](https://news.usni.org/2017/04/06/breaking-u-s-destroyers-fire-dozens-
tomahawks-syrian-airfield-retaliation-strike-chemical-attack)

~~~
maxerickson
Between the rest of that Destroyer Squadron and Carrier Strike Group 2,
there's at least 6 other Tomahawk capable ships in the region.

------
mamaniscalco
The ugly truth is that if you want to change a culture you must permeate it.
This requires a multi-generational commitment. You can not assault an
opposition into compliance. You must defeat its leaders and its men and then
squat upon its culture until its children know nothing other than your own
culture. This is what our grandfathers understood when they placed multi-
generational bases in Germany and Japan. Today's metro-sexual culture does not
have the understanding nor the resolve for such a commitment.

A civilized culture must abhor violence. But it must also be ready to use it
when the alternative is to ignore the suffering of others.

