Friday, April 07, 2017

Trump's Syrian Strike

Okay, just the way my mind works. I've spent a couple of hours reading dozens of reports of the US strike--read: Trump's strike--on a Syrian airfield last night in retaliation for Assad's using poison gas on his own people a couple of days ago. Now Russia, aligned with Assad and Syria, is supposedly upset with us, with Putin saying that the strike seriously affects US-Russian relations. Trump supporters have run out the line that this affront to Russia via Syria, proves that Trump and Putin are not aligned, in cahoots or otherwise on the same page. Some Trump haters have decided that this was a good move and makes him look presidential, finally.
    My take is a bit more skeptical. I think this was a very cynical move on Trump's part, done with the A-Okay of Putin. Here's the deal, from where I sit: Trump needs to do something presidential, and the US citizenry always finds war things presidential. Trump is forced, by public opinion, to respond to Assad's slaughtering of dissidents, including children, by gassing them, and then having his planes bomb the hospital that was treating the survivors. So Trump and his inner circle decide that an airstrike on the airbase allegedly used to deliver the poison gas will be an appropriate response.
    But then Trump contacts Putin, or someone in Trump's circle contacts someone in Putin's circle to announce the airstrike on the airbase, giving Putin fair warning to get any military or civilians and any Russian equipment out of there. Putin, in turn, relays the message of the upcoming airstrike to Assad's people, who move all aircraft and anything else of value, off the site and out of harm's way. Then the US fires off 59 Tomahawk missiles in the direction of the airbase. At the moment, the dead count is seven, and I have not yet read if those are civilians or military or both. But apparently no planes were hit, nothing of value destroyed, no message sent....
   Except the message to the American people that Trump is not Putin's patsy, which is a wonderful thing considering Trump and his people are being investigated right now for colluding with Putin and the Russians to fix the election that brought Trump to the presidency. After all, if Trump is willing to confront Putin and risk his wrath--which you would imagine would include releasing anything harmful he has on Trump--it almost proves that there could not have been any collusion in the election here in the US. Except for the fact that Putin was given a heads-up about the missile strike, which allowed him to warn Assad, which allowed him to get rid of anything of value.
   So Trump gets to look presidential, USA gets to bomb a vile Assad, Trump looks like he's standing up for dead children and standing up to Putin, and Trump, Putin and Assad all get to have a good laugh together at how well the publicity stunt went off. The seven dead? That's nothing for Assad to concern himself with: He killed many more than that just days earlier.

1 comment:

phoenix said...

That sounds about right Peter. Good analysis!