Tags
barack obama, Donald Trump, john kerry, Lawrence O'Donnell, Putin, Russia, Shayrat, Syria, Tomahawk cruise missiles
As everyone not living in a cave in the South Pacific knows by now, President Trump authorized the release of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from two American destroyers. Their target: the Syrian Shayrat airbase, the very airbase from which a Sarin attack was launched on innocent civilians. According to media reports, the entire base, including at least twenty aircraft, was essentially destroyed. Also according to reports, Russia was notified of the strike 30 minutes in advance, and apparently, none of their personnel were killed or aircraft damaged.
This attack has been extensively covered elsewhere, so I’ll only add several preliminary observations:
*Any suggestion that Donald Trump is inflexible and incapable of learning and adapting in office is out the window (I know: the media are exempted from reality).
*By taking decisive and measured action in response to a crime against humanity, President Trump has seized the moral high ground, ripping it out of the grasp of progressives who talk boldly, but never back up their rhetoric with action.
*Mr. Trump’s decisiveness has exposed Barack Obama for the feckless and dictator-supporting fool he has always been. Any suggestion that anything Obama did regarding Syria–or the rest of the Middle East–was positive is forever obliterated—at least to rational human beings.
*Mr. Trump has changed, in one careful stroke, the calculus of every dictator around the world. America is back and they can no longer afford to ignore the President of the United States, nor safely denigrate America.
*While Russia has denounced the attack, its denunciations are careful, even weak. Any suggestion that Donald Trump is a supporter of Vladimir Putin or not sufficiently hard on Russia will now be much harder for even irrational leftists to sustain.
*Honest, professional American diplomats are rejoicing. Obamite loyalists are not. Professionals working for America know diplomacy is meaningless and ineffective unless there is sufficient force, and above all, the willingness to use it, to back it up. The work of our professional, loyal diplomats in looking out for America’s interests, and the interests of civilization, just became easier.
*America’s allies are heartened. They now have concrete reason to believe the disastrous years of Obama foreign policy are over and American just might be trustworthy once again.
*When Barack Obama visited military installations, he would force soldiers to serve as PR props. Their grim visages eloquently revealed their feelings about him. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines now know beyond any doubt they have a Commander In Chief again.
*Congressional leftists/Obamites are surely going berserk. What Mr. Trump did was so right, popular and unassailable some of them are actually forced to support it (I know: most of them are still unhinged).
*Any reprisal attacks made by Syria, Iran or their terrorist proxies will unleash immediate destruction on them. Iranian gunboats harassing American ships will likely be blown out of the water, and it will have been about time. They’ll have to try, and it will be gratifying to see them turned into random atoms.
* Unquestionably, America has a UN Ambassador, A Secretary Of State, A Secretary of Defense and a President looking out for American interests.
*America has an American president again.
I do not suggest this action could not lead to additional difficulties in the future, though one must keep in mind Mr. Obama’s pathetic leading from behind wrought destruction on millions. However, either America leads the world, or is relegated to observer status, a toothless, fearful observer ignored even by the United Nations, feared by none, mistrusted by allies. Perhaps this was a worthy first step toward returning America to a position of leadership and prominence in the world. We’ll know soon enough.
One final thought: Mr. Trump’s actual leadership has once again exposed the left for the raving lunatics they are:
UPDATE 040917 033 CST: Oh dear. Just when I thought the left couldn’t possibly become any more deranged, The Daily Caller bursts my naïve bubble:
And who is Lars Maischak? Why he’s a professor of history at California State University, Fresno. He’s what passes for the voice of reason in academia these days:
I often explain how progressives see those of us that live in fly-over country, but some never quite believe me:
And what does the good professor suggest be done?
This, gentle readers, is what tax dollars buys. While UC Fresno is saying Maischak does not speak–at least not officially–for the University, we can be certain the University will absolutely support his right to free, if deranged and hateful, speech. The speech of people opposing Maischak’s spittle-slinging diatribe, not so much.
Now we know, at least at UC Fresno, what the curriculum really is. Not only will your daughters surely be raped if they go to college, not only will your sons be branded rapists for daring to be social with women, both will graduate with degrees in hatred of Democracy and everyone that doesn’t embrace the venom they’re being taught. But hey, the Left only wants dialogue–and dead republicans, and a dead president, and a single political party…
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Reblogged this on Brittius.
“We won’t tolerate intolerance!”
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He also called the commanders of the mission to thank them for a job well done.
http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=99817
I am a firm believer in the freedom of speech and will and have defended it, however tax dollars given to an institution that allows such violent speech has not fulfilled its obligation to citizens. As well, regardless of college admin statements, the professor represents the college and it is not censorship for the professor to be punished for defaming the institution; censorship is a government action. A institution need not give anyone a bully pulpit to spew such hate. Had I made a similar statement against Obama when I was a manager for a large construction company, I’m positive I would have been fired.
A cogent argument in favor of the missile strikes.
I confess that after enduring eight years of President Obama, I have become a neoisolationist. To quote one of the founding fathers (Adams I believe) “America should be a friend of liberty everywhere but a defender of none but it’s own.”
I also delight in taunting almost everyone by referencing the “Bush Lied! People Died!” slogan that Obama ran on by asking “Bush Lied? People Died?”. The irony is delicious. Governor Palin’s comment about “let Allah sort ’em out” is profound wisdom.
Given a choice between Islamic Terrorists on one side verses Assad (who Syrian Christians support out of self preservation), I favor Assad. However; I would prefer to simply remain uninvolved and just eat popcorn while I observe the slaughter.
Dear James Crawford:
There just aren’t any easy answers, but we can be reasonably certain Mr. Obama’s fecklessness has made everything Mr. Trump is now dealing with worse. We may not be able to once again position America where it must be on the world stage without expending substantial blood and treasure.
Well said.
However; there was a time (prior to WW2) when the US was content to have a minimal presence on the world stage. America did not involve itself in various European insanities such as the Crimean War. As a result, we were for the most part left alone. Mexico and Canada were the only countries stupid enough to mess with us. It took the administration of an ass kicking during the Texas War of secession then another ass kicking during the Mexican American war followed up by a few minor border incursions as reminders to educate Mexico.
My fatalism is informed by the ongoing demographic implosion in Europe combined with the insane immigration policies of the EU. Europe will inevitably become Eurabia and I pray that the US will have severed it’s entangling alliance with NATO before that happens. The fact that France and Great Britain each have four nuclear powered, ballistic missile submarines with 16 missiles per sub and 10 warheads per missile inspires visions of the United States reenacting Churchill’s attack on the French fleet, hopefully with greater competence.
While President Trump can inspire a revival of patriotism, Trump can not defy the demographic realities that will inevitably result in America being alone in a hostile world. Abandoning out 70 year compulsion to be the global cop is necessary for our survival.