War. War never changes. (Except when it does)
Re: War. War never changes. (Except when it does)
2017 is the year everyone gets hoisted on their own 2016.
Re: War. War never changes. (Except when it does)
Well, for a few minutes there I was like "Bout that time again chaps."
Actually turned out to be more or less accurate!
O___o

Re: War. War never changes. (Except when it does)
I have this terrible suspicion that the reason Trump acted so quickly on this is because it happened to almost perfectly parallel a West Wing episode.
Re: War. War never changes. (Except when it does)
He should have gotten approval from Congress, but that aside, I think this may have actually been our best call under the circumstances: take out the facility that launched the chemical weapons, but give advance warning to minimize fatalities.
I'm certainly extremely wary about escalation and Trump's ability to handle it, and I haven't forgotten where "he's a monster who gassed his own people; we can't just do nothing" got us the last time. And that's before we even get into Assad as the enemy of our enemy, ISIS. This shit's way too complicated for me to guess with any real confidence what the right thing to do is. But at this one moment and in this one instance, I think this might have been it.
I'm certainly extremely wary about escalation and Trump's ability to handle it, and I haven't forgotten where "he's a monster who gassed his own people; we can't just do nothing" got us the last time. And that's before we even get into Assad as the enemy of our enemy, ISIS. This shit's way too complicated for me to guess with any real confidence what the right thing to do is. But at this one moment and in this one instance, I think this might have been it.
Re: War. War never changes. (Except when it does)
Okay, so last night the one thing that made this not an escalatory disaster was that the US warned Russia through the "deconflict" channel set up specifically to avoid accidental incidents between the two nations.
Ruh roh
Russia has notified the U.S.-led coalition of its intent to suspend a communication channel for avoiding air accidents in the crowded airspace over Syria, a coalition spokesman said on Friday.
A Russian foreign ministry statement had said that Moscow was suspending an air safety agreement with the United States originally drawn up to ensure that the two countries’ planes did not collide. A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters separately that Russia would keep military channels of communication open with Washington, but would not exchange any information through them.
“I can confirm that the Russians communicated their intent regarding the deconfliction channel to the Coalition today,” coalition spokesman U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian said in an email.
Ruh roh
