As I write, “The Biggest U.S. Navy Force Since Iraq Invasion May Be Sailing Toward Syria”. They are being positioned so that the Joint Chiefs can offer President Trump the option of a robust military strike against Russian targets in Syria. A strike force is necessary because Russia has installed an advanced integrated air defense system in Syria capable of denying the U.S. unfettered access to Syrian airspace. Russia has found a way to spoof or jam US surveillance drones, eliminating a key method that the US uses to site locations for missile strikes. If the US plans on carrying out an extensive and meaningful military action against Assad’s forces, they will need to fly US planes into Syrian airspace. That means the US must carry out an extensive military strike throughout the country targeting the newly installed Russian air defenses. It means substantial Russian casualties. Not just mercenaries, but uniformed Russian soldiers whose bodies will be shipped back to Russia in flag-draped coffins to a an enraged Russian public.
Russia may respond by striking an American warship in the Mediterranean. That will result in flag-draped coffins of American service members being sent back home to a an enraged American public. Now comes the big question. Does it stop here? There’s a great scene in the movie “Thirteen Days” when John F. Kennedy is confronted with the choice to blockade Cuba, or launch an airstrike to take out Russian missile installations. Fatefully for us all, President Kennedy chose a blockade, and it turned out that the Russians were equally terrified of the consequences of conflict. The situation was deescalated behind closed doors. But don’t forget, there are still Curtis LeMays that exist in the U.S. government. People so monomaniacal as to be oblivious to the great danger that their pet policy places us all in. Right now, those people are, for lack of a better word, “Syrian Interventionists”.
We now have an unstable maniac in the White House who will be asked in the very near future, once the US Navy positions its assets, to choose between a limited, symbolic strike with targets communicated in advance to the Russians, or a substantial engagement that will result in both dead Russians, and, most likely, dead Americans. Trump’s current preference appears to be in favor of a substantial strike.
Don’t call your Congressperson about Rosenstein’s firing. Call them to let them know that they should be vocally opposing a strike in Syria.
And yes, a chemical weapons attack is abhorrent. It would be nice to live in a world where the perpetrators of such attacks can be easily brought to justice. This isn’t that world. The action Trump is contemplating places our entire world in danger.
I leave you with the one thing you should watch today. It’s Jeffrey Sachs, telling the truth about Syria.