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Following reports of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, President Trump authorized the launch of Tomahawk cruise missiles against a base in Syria. The Russian government was notified prior to the launch as they have resources in the area that was attacked.
According to NBC News:
The United States launched dozens of cruise missiles Thursday night at a Syrian airfield in response to what it believes was Syria's use of banned chemical weapons that killed at least 100 people, U.S. military officials told NBC News.
Two U.S. warships in the Mediterranean Sea fired 59 Tomahawk missiles intended for a single target — Ash Sha'irat in Homs province in western Syria, the officials said. That's the airfield from which the United States believes the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fired the banned weapons.
There was no immediate word on casualties. U.S. officials told NBC News that people were not targeted and that aircraft and infrastructure at the site were hit, including the runway and gas fuel pumps.
Also at Al Jazeera:
The United States has launched 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles against Syrian government targets in retaliation for what the Trump administration charges was a Syrian government chemical weapons attack that killed scores of civilians, a US official says.
The targets hit from US ships in the Mediterranean Sea included the air base in the central city of Homs from which the Syrian aircraft staged Tuesday's chemical weapons attack, the US official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
[...] He [Trump] called on "civilised nations" to join US in "seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria".
Syrian state TV said "American aggression targets Syrian military targets with a number of missiles".
The poison gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province on Tuesday killed at least 86 people, including 27 children, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Turkey said samples from victims of Tuesday's attack indicate they were exposed to sarin, a highly toxic nerve agent.
The New York Times adds:
The Pentagon informed Russian military officials, through its established deconfliction channel, of the strike before the launching of the missiles, the official said, with American officials knowing when they did that that Russian authorities may well have alerted the Assad regime. "With a lot of Tomahawks flying, we didn't want to hit any Russian planes," he said.
[...] It was Mr. Trump's first order to the military for the use of force — other operations in Syria, Yemen and Iraq had been carried out under authorization delegated to his commanders — and appeared intended to send a message to North Korea, Iran and other potential adversaries that the new commander in chief was prepared to act, and sometimes on short notice.
The airstrikes were carried out less than an hour after the president concluded a dinner with Xi Jinping, the president of China, at Mar-a-Lago, sending an unmistakably aggressive signal about Mr. Trump's willingness to use the military power at his disposal.
Mr. Trump authorized the strike with no congressional approval for the use of force, an assertion of presidential authority that contrasts sharply with the protracted deliberations over the use of force by his predecessor, former President Barack Obama.
[...] Mr. Trump moved with remarkable speed, delivering the punishing military strike barely 72 hours after the devastating chemical attack that killed 80 people this week.
Wikipedia notes: Use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war .
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday April 07 2017, @06:10AM (7 children)
Why is it that when we try to kill terrorists and wind up with dead civilians, it's just a tragic accident, but when the Syrians do the same thing it's just so awful and absolutely inexcusable?
It's been alleged that Mr. Assad's forces used a nerve agent, rather than explosives. Such a weapon is deemed to be indiscriminate in its nature, which supposedly is what the fuss is about. America is criticised, from some quarters, for using cluster bombs (which can attract children) and for keeping thousands of nuclear weapons on hand.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday April 07 2017, @08:25AM (6 children)
Such a weapon is deemed to be indiscriminate in its nature, which supposedly is what the fuss is about.
Such weapons are banned by accepted international law. See: https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/chemical/ [un.org] This is a war crime.
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Friday April 07 2017, @08:49AM (2 children)
Yes, absolutely, they are banned and their use is considered a war crime. I was skipping past the fact that they're banned to the reason they're banned. Your link tells us "the results were indiscriminate and often devastating." As for why they're indiscriminate, another commenter in the earlier story pointed out that they travel on the wind. I think that perhaps Arik knows these things and is just calling to our attention the fact that explosives can similarly kill and maim people in a large area.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by aristarchus on Friday April 07 2017, @09:08AM
There are several things that come into consideration when the international community outlaws weapons. Interestingly, one of the first efforts was in St. Petersburg in 1868, and one of the prime targets of that convention was the use of "dum-dum" projectiles in British muskets in India. Still a thing, no hollow-point bullets in war. So, excessive harm to combatants is one consideration, lack of "discrimination" (targetability) is another, and persistence is yet another. Blinding weapons are illegal because they cause permanent disability. Nukes should be illegal if only for the long lasting effects of radiation.
But you have already seen that the rules are far from consistent. Cluster bombs are allowed, even though they are indiscriminate, and often persistent? Other area weapons, hyperbaric and fuel-air bombs, are legit, not to mention nukes? Syria's use of chemical weapons cannot be condoned, but there are enough weapons with similar moral reservations that have been used by others to call the condemnation in this case into question.
Someone once proposed a rather more simple rule for the use of weapons in war, after one of the American conquests of Falluja: "Do not burn the skin off of children." This is a good guideline, and I, for one, think that all nations, and NGOs and even criminal organizations, should abide by it.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday April 07 2017, @06:48PM
And in fact that's a distortion. Poison gas usually isn't very effective in practice, armies around the world were enamored with the idea for awhile but no one ever really got the kind of results they were hoping for. And it's extremely hazardous to handle, so it's probably more of a danger to your own people than the enemy. It got bundled into the 'WMD' category for political reasons, because the major powers were ready to give up gas, and making it sound like it was a weapon somehow comparable to nuclear bombs was a way to get good press. But really it's kind of like comparing a MOAB and a firecracker, oh hey! they're both explosives!
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday April 07 2017, @04:55PM (2 children)
And, whatever the state of the treaties, in terms of which ones have been politically feasible and which ones not (banning gas went over because no major power relies on it anyway, but banning nukes and cluster bombs and other things that the major powers DO still use doesn't happen) let's not pretend that blowing someones torso off and leaving him to bleed out that way is any less heinous than filling his lungs with fluid causing him to drown using a gas.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday April 07 2017, @06:44PM (1 child)
Agreed, for the most part. A couple of quibbles: in international law, being a signatory is not necessary for jurisdiction if the vast majority of nations have signed on. At a certain point, a treaty can become customary law. Chemical weapons ban is in that category. Second, aggressive war is a "crime against humanity", as they put in in Nuremburg, not a war crime per se. So combatants are not responsible for the crime of conducting hostilities, as long as they were acting in good faith. The Leaders are the ones guilty of crimes against humanity.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday April 07 2017, @06:55PM
Even granting the first two points for the sake of argument, the third point would still need to be proven and probably cannot be, but that's a rather different topic. None of this is really relevant here, thanks to Russian diplomacy, Syria has signed the treaty, so the point is moot.
"Second, aggressive war is a "crime against humanity", as they put in in Nuremburg, not a war crime per se."
I believe "crime against peace" is the phrase you are looking for, and per Nuremburg it is "the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?