Trump's Syria strike: What they're not telling you

[dannyboys]

From RT: Six MiG-23 fighter jets were destroyed in the operation, along with a material storage depot, a training facility, a canteen and a radar station, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense (MoD).

Syria Crisis: Live Updates

HAAA HAAAA! That's hillarious!
"According to Russia's Ministry of Defense".
That's like claiming Obama took the herd of white unicorns that were grazing in the Rose garden with him to hide with them in Indonesia. "According to the NYTs."

 

[DrainBamage]

But according to the Washington Post (link), they were a poor choice of weaponry under the circumstances, because Russia has S-400 surface to air defense technology in place in Syria which could easily have shot them down.

Absolutely false. Tomahawks fly very low so wouldn't be picked up on radar until close, 59 of them would have easily overwhelmed Russian missile batteries in the time they'd have to intercept them. I'd be surprised if they even had 59 S-300/S-400 missiles available to be launched, those things are huge and designed to hit high flying aircraft at long range:

Your link doesn't say what you claim it does, it points out the S-300/S-400 would be more of a risk to pilots so the cruise missiles were a better option. It says:

One of the largest advantages to using the Tomahawk is that it does not require a pilot to be anywhere near a potential target. They can be launched from Navy destroyers up to 1,000 miles away, a tactical consideration when facing enemy air defenses. Assad’s military operates modest S-200 surface-to-air missile systems but is backed by Russian forces, which have more advanced S-300 and S-400 missiles. Those systems have better radar and fly faster than older surface-to-air missiles.

This means that Trump went with the wrong weaponry when he ordered the Tomahawk attack (his military advisers would have explained this to him), and he used the missiles to merely put on a show for TV viewers at home, rather than doing any real damage. In other words Trump just set a bunch of Tomahawk missiles on fire which, according to a recent Defense Department report (link), may have been worth as much as $93.8 million in total. Why would he do this? Well, he does own shares of stock in the company that makes the Tomahawks.

The strike was for soft targets, planes/radar/fuel/etc. that is real damage.

The Tomahawks that Trump just burned up will have to be replaced, meaning he just handed a nearly hundred million dollar payday to a company he owns stock in. Not surprisingly, shares of Raytheon spiked today (link), meaning he’s directly profiting from his Syria attack. And again, it appears the Tomahawks were not the ideal choice of weaponry for the Syria attack.

Nope, they do not need to replace 59 tomahawks. The USN has a stockpile of 3,500 tomahawks and even the current low rate annual procurement is still more 59 plus whatever we lobbed at Yemen a few months ago. There has been no change in DoD tomahawk procurement from Raytheon so your claim he handed them a payday is groundless.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

Democrats don't understand what inventory is or that the missiles have already been replaced from inventory.

 

[Valerie]

Pentagon officials said that two Destroyer-class U.S. warships had launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Shayrat Airfield in the western province of Homs, destroying aircraft and infrastructure but largely avoiding civilian casualties. “Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched,” Trump told reporters Thursday from Mar-a-Lago

White House officials carefully telegraphed the same message, calling the strike “a warning shot”.

Times reported, the U.S. military had in fact warned the Russian military before attacking the Shayrat Airfield, which serves as a crucial outpost for Russian forces stationed in Syria. “Military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield,” Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said.

ABC News reported later on Friday, the Syrian military had apparently been tipped off to the attack—presumably by its Russian allies—and had largely evacuated by the time several dozen Tomahawk missiles landed. By Friday afternoon, jets were already taking off from the air base again, according to multiple reports.

Syria Is Already Flying Missions Out of the Air Base Trump Attacked

 

[Valerie]

Assad’s taunting Trump by quickly reopening Shayrat Airfield leaves the White House with a dilemma. For one, the symbolic nature of the administration’s attack has apparently emboldened Russia.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Moscow said it plans to buttress Syria’s air forces, the Times reports, and announced that it would suspend an agreement between the U.S. and Russia, intended to minimize the possibility of in-air collisions. Assad himself appeared more irritated than cowed, calling the U.S. strike “irresponsible”...

 

[Valerie]

Critics of the administration were furious, noting that Trump may have incidentally empowered Assad with his own policies just days earlier. On March 30, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that the “longer-term status of President Assad would be decided by the Syrian people,” marking a definitive shift in policy toward Syria and aligning the U.S. more closely with Russia, one of Assad’s closest allies. That same day, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley declared, “Our priority is no longer to sit there, and focus on getting Assad out.”

Senator John McCain, among other foreign policy hawks, denounced the apparent shift as giving license to the Assad regime.

The White House Can’t Figure Out Who Is to Blame for the Syrian Gas Attack

 

[Valerie]

Trump himself has long promoted a hands-off policy in Syria, tweeting repeatedly in the wake of a similar poison gas attack in 2013 that Assad is “not our problem” and urging then President Barack Obama to seek congressional authorization before launching any attack.

Trump Launches Missile Strike on Syrian Air Base

 

[Valerie]

Let that sink in for a moment: Bashar al-Assad gassed his own people, then bombed those desperately trying to save the lives of those suffering and dying from the chemicals.

Bashar al-Assad just gassed his own people, then bombed the clinic treating victims




Rep. Eliot Engel, ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, issued a statement saying he was “horrified by the Assad regime's attack,” and accused the Trump administration of emboldening Assad:

Sadly, the Assad regime is likely feeling empowered right now.

This week, the Trump Administration moved toward appeasing the butcher in Damascus and accepting how Moscow and Tehran have enabled and protected him.

 

[DrainBamage]

By Friday afternoon, jets were already taking off from the air base again, according to multiple reports.

Of course they were. There is nothing the US can do to that runway that can't be repaired. It we had flown a B-2 to crater the runway with 2.,000 lb JDAMs they'd probably be up and running by now anyway, all it takes is filling in dirt and resurfacing.

It takes a sustained campaign to permanently limit the effectiveness of a large air base.

 

[Valerie]

Tomahawk missiles are manufactured by Raytheon Inc., and according to this report from Business Insider (link), Donald Trump owned stock in Raytheon up through at least the start of the presidential election cycle. There is no record that he subsequently sold that stock. The Tomahawks that Trump just burned up will have to be replaced, meaning he just handed a nearly hundred million dollar payday to a company he owns stock in. Not surprisingly, shares of Raytheon spiked today (link), meaning he’s directly profiting from his Syria attack. And again, it appears the Tomahawks were not the ideal choice of weaponry for the Syria attack.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

The use of these missiles won't change the procurement order one way or the other.

Which Democrat fool made this one up?

 

[Picaro]

LOL another wave of Valerie spam! It must be true, cuz like, there's a lot of it!!! lol