Comings & Goings
The House Intelligence Committee just got slightly smarter as Devin Nunes left to deal with an ethics complaint. Mike Conaway is now leading the investigation that is intended to provide cover for the White House.
Steve Bannon is off the National Security Council as result of General McMaster and/or Jared Kushner, depending on the the source you read.
We have launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syrian airfields. I would assume there will be Russian casualties as well as Syrian. Trump stated that this was a reaction to a poison gas attack.
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It turns out there were neither Russian nor Syrian casualties, because…. uhm… Mad Dog warned them via the back-channel that the U.S. military had to the local Russian forces.
In short, what we just did was send a *very* expensive telegram by blowing holes in runways and blowing up empty buildings. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It sends the message, look, this is what we can do to you if you piss us off — *without* warning next time. *Now* are you going to destroy those chemical weapons that you promised us you were going to destroy? It sends that message without loss of life — loss of life would have made it harder for Assad to accede because the relatives would have been irate and demanding vengeance — and gives the diplomats more leverage. If followed up by a competent and effective diplomatic effort, it could actually succeed in having Assad live up to the 2013 agreement where he agreed to destroy all of his chemical weapons.
Wait. Competent. Effective. From the Trump administration.
We are so doomed.
Yeah, I saw the announcement of a $75 million+ fireworks display. They would have moved operational equipment. You can’t take out a runway with a 1,000 ponds of HE, you need special purpose munitions. They would have included cluster warheads that are effective on aircraft, fuel storage, and other soft targets. The flash and bangs would have been most of the effects. There may be unexploded cluster bomblets that will slow down reopening the the base.
McMaster hasn’t had enough time to actually create a real national security plan. Apparently Bannon and Jared are still at war. Bannon is on his way out, Trump only really trusts family.
Yeah, that’s one thing Trump learned from hanging around the Mafia — the only people you can trust are family. And even them, you gotta be careful about.
Hmm, just saw some after action satellite images. I it looks like they have created a dual-charge ‘bunker buster for the Tomahawk. They ‘cut’ some circular holes in the aircraft shelters and the second charge went off inside. People would die from the explosive compression if they were inside. The runways look usable, but the workshops and fuel storage are gone.
According to the Russians and the footage from the Russian drone that flew over the airfield, the casualties were some of the shelters, a couple of hangars, and six aircraft. That looks pretty much like what everything else looks like too, so.
Yeah, the runways are usable. The Syrians were flying airstrikes out of the airfield again today. I suppose the shelters now have blue tarps over the holes in their roofs, LOL.
The tarps are probably used and were issued by FEMA for a storm somewhere. Actually for one storm they started using vinyl billboard ads. They were campaigns that were over and were pulled from the billboards so new ads could go up. Somebody got a tax break for that one. If I was Assad I would see if I could get some political ads from 2016, That would really frost Trump – having his picture and ‘Make America Great Again’ covering the holes in the roofs that were damaged. 👿