SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @03:44PM (1 child)
She voted for every military intervention and overreaching government infringement of our liberties when a Senator,
Nice way to gloss over the details.
There was exactly one military intervention to vote on while she was in the senate.
Rich Republicans in fact wanted anybody but Trump, because his populist, anti-globalist rhetoric rattled them.
You are being deceptive again. Rich republicans may have preferred others in the primaries. But they were happy to vote for trump in general. And they got exactly what they wanted when he loaded up their gold mansacks. The stock market's trump rally wasn't because the rich thought they were about to get their comeuppance.
To win, Trump had to attract the Tea Party faction, which he did, with his populist themes.
Dude, the tea party was all about racism. 68% of teagoppers think anti-white bias is at least as big a problem as anti-black bias. [mintpressnews.com] There are many kinds of populism and tea party populism is clearly the racist kind.
The world is not so two dimensional and cartoonish as you make it out to be.
Oh please, spare me the "I'm a deeper thinker than you are" bullshit.
Yes, plenty of people just vote on party because of mental inertia.
But people who chose to vote for trump, rather than abstain, chose to do so because they were OK with his unapologetic racism.
Ignoring the fact that racial security for members of the dominate racial group is more important than economic security is how we will continue to lose as long as whites are still a majority of the population. If you listen to trump voters [motherjones.com] they aren't so worried about their own economic insecurity as they are the chance that "undeserving" people are getting government help with their economic insecurity. They are all about lazy blacks on welfare and mexicans with anchor babies on welfare.
As long as trump or some other demagogue is willing to exploit that racial anxiety and animus, no amount of giving them more economic security will change their minds that undeserving brown people are getting free stuff. In europe, a larger welfare state actually corresponds to increased far-right activity. [vox.com] In the US, 60% of the white working class think that discrimination against whites is the biggest problem with race relations despite there being no evidence in outcomes to support their feelings of persecution. [mintpressnews.com] Those are trump voters.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday April 08 2017, @02:32AM
She voted for Iraq. Before voting for Iraq, she almost gave herself an orgasm talking about the former Yugoslavia (remember, that place she helicoptered into under sniper fire (proven lie)). She was instrumental in Libya. She was in the chain of command for drone strikes. She lobbied hard and long to attack Syria.
You can try to revise history, but a lot of it is on video (including my comment about her creaming her pants over Yugoslavia while cheerleading for the Iraq war):
synopsis: