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President Trump announced Friday night that the U.S. and its allies had launched attacks on Syria in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack last week by President Bashar Assad's regime.
In televised remarks from the White House, Trump said the attacks were underway, and that Great Britain and France were also taking part.
The president did not provide details, but U.S. warships in the Mediterranean Sea, armed with cruise missiles, were in position to strike. British and French forces were also in place.
[...] The president said the U.S. prepared to sustain effort until the Syrian regime stops using chemical weapons.
[...] In the days leading up to the U.S. attack, Russia had warned that it would defend its troops in Syria. This has raised fears of a possible direct clash of U.S. and Russian forces.
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/13/601794830/u-s-launches-attacks-on-syria
Also at Bloomberg and The Guardian
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JustNiz on Saturday April 14 2018, @04:14AM (2 children)
If you want a good conspiracy here's one of my favourites:
The problem with having high-tech weapons is that you don;t know if they will work until you try them against an equally skilled enemy.
Countries look for, or even start limited wars just to test their latest weapons every 10 years or so.
Stopping chemical weapons is just the excuse that the US wants to test their latest weapons against the USSR in a way they (and the world) can exit from.
Putin at least equally loves the chance to test his weapons in a limited way against the best that the USA has too.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RedIsNotGreen on Saturday April 14 2018, @05:56AM
I'm pretty sure this is true. I developed the same theory when I was following the conflict in Ukraine, where I am originally from. I noticed news of the U.S. shipping their latest armored vehicles to Ukraine as "aid", as well as providing training, but it was very small numbers, maybe dozens of units.
The macro-world sometimes looks like a Command & Conquer or Starcraft multi-player game. Of course, that is based on reality itself, but it's sad how much of our macro-existences are about "gain control the resources" and "upgrade weapons" and "maintain dominance over the area and resources".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @02:26AM
this is true of the whole apparatus. the army is not going to be very good at war if they sit around playing bingo all day. :) still doesn't make it right. i think there's things they could be doing instead of destabilizing countries. kind of how cops just drive around raping and stealing from largely kiss ass working people instead of going after actual violent criminals. soldiers get the benefit of the doubt from me most of the time, even though it's sad to see them borg'd into the scum of the predatory police/fbi/atf/war machine. fuck government.