https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/world/middleeast/trump-strikes-syria-attack.html
This is an article by the New York Times so feel free to treat opinions with scrutiny. This is merely a thread to talk about it and whatnot.

if you ask my opinion, this action done by the US, Britain and France is a bad move. While they say they have concrete evidence that links the Regime to being responsible for the chemical gas attack near Damascus last weekend. I have issues with this, but namely these three.
1) If you have supposed "concrete evidence" that links the regime to this attack then why did you enact before revealing the connection? At this point it's acting on something you haven't and currently refuse to share which is shady if not reckless
2) If you had done 1 there would be the matter regarding Russia. Now Russia has said they don't approve of all that the Bashar al-Assad regime does so after showing the evidence it would be better to conduct talks with Russia regarding this.
3) This is about a chemical attack in Damascus and is something to ask about, "is it worth risking a plausible missile exchange with Russia over this?" I don't condone the actions by these attacks if they are indeed linked to this leader, however this situation will need to be handled carefully and ultimately a concern you better hope has plenty of actions for it.

Anyway those are my thoughts. Have fun!

I wouldn't be surprised Assad's regime did do it. Russia saying they don't approve doesn't mean they actually don't approve, Russia is pretty corrupt itself. I don't see what talks can lead to with them, but I guess it's better than a missile exchange.

I hope some good prevails in the end in of all this conflict.

Russia called an emergency UN Council meeting today so hopefully we'll get some good news out of that.

I just want to be done with Syria, Trump recently talked about pulling troops out and to see a missile strike by 3 major powers just makes me so uncomfortable. The sooner this conflict is over, the better.

This is terrible. The US President needs to get the authorization of Congress to commit acts of war. I don't know about the UK and French requirements, but Jeremy Corbyn seems to be saying that May needed to get the approval of Parliament for the UK to participate.

Yeah, that is what the western establishment would like for you to believe. The logic actually follows somewhat like this:

1. Assad is accused of using chemical weapons against his own people by the Western Bloc. No hard evidence is provided, and Western Bloc could be lying.
2. Eastern Bloc interjects and says the Western Bloc is lying, also providing no hard evidence. Eastern Bloc could also be lying just as well.
3. Since there is no hard evidence linking Assad to the attack, the finger-pointing becomes irrelevant as neither party is to be trusted.
4. With the Blocs out of the way, we examine Assad and Syria to find that he has little or nothing to gain by attacking his people with chemical weapons, and a lot to lose by doing so. So why would he do that?

Regardless of who says what, the logic forming the accusations against Assad isn’t there. He has everything to lose to do something so reckless and stupid in a civil war like this, so assuming Assad is capable of acting in his own interests, which for his entire past career he pretty much has been, then he would not do this.

Of course, we don’t know for a fact what happened either way. For now, the chemical attacks are completely unexplained and the only big answers being pushed by the Blocs have no significant evidence and expect the public to take their word on the matter.
People wanted to be done with Syria seven years ago, as President Obama began moving in to go to war with them. And like Obama, Trump seems to be following the same exact pattern: “We are going to war with Syria,” “I do not need Congressional approval,” “Assad absolutely did use chemical weapons [ad nauseam],” et cetera.

The Presidents are checked by nobody, and for wartime purposes have as much power as an Emperor would to carry out their will. They count on the fact that the public won’t really care about the war that much, as long as they’re not personally inconvenienced, and in all likelihood they’re probably right on the money and prove it by getting reelected. They’ll continue doing what they want, making messes and leaving millions to waste away, and check right out on inauguration day like nothing happened as the next guy inherits their mess.

There's no evidence indicating that he wouldn't attack his people. Do you trust the word of the people running U.S. or the words of Russia and Assad? It's not like Russia and Syria are stable countries right now.

If I'm being played for like a fool that's fine, then I am a fool. But for now I'd like to believe that the U.S. has a good reason for what it's doing.

While they say they have concrete evidence that links the Regime to being responsible for the chemical gas attack near Damascus last weekend.

1) If you have supposed "concrete evidence" that links the regime to this attack then why did you enact before revealing the connection? At this point it's acting on something you haven't and currently refuse to share which is shady if not reckless

Wanting to trust something doesn't equate to it being trust material. Fact is they say they have evidence, but haven't showed it. Another thing is that cons outweigh the pros in doing this against Syria. Frankly, even if Russia is lying, even if they're telling the truth, even if they show it, even if the regime is worse then they already are...is it worth staying in a war with Syria and potentially getting into a conflict with Russia just to, "have a moral obligation"?

I see what you mean. The last thing we need is another conflict especially with Russia's ICBMs, but I guess we'll have to wait and see how things progress from here.

I trust neither blöc's word on the matter because there's entirely too much at stake for honesty to be floating at the forefront of developments on the matter, and the absence of evidence is precisely why.

There is no evidence indicating that Assad wouldn't attack his people, and there is no evidence indicating that he would. Occam's razor, therefore, says he did not, because there are more assumptions that need to be made to say he did than there would be otherwise. Both blöcs are telling everybody in a cacophony that he did or didn't and neither have shifted the burden of proof anywhere, because what they say isn't necessarily what has taken place.

Also, in the context of the chemical attacks, the assumption that he is responsible for them is what I am cutting out with the razor. It is better to say, we do not know who did those for certain yet, and consider a list of suspects of which the US, Russia, Assad and others are undoubtedly members of. Vragon brings up another interesting point to do with evidence, which is to say that if there was any hard evidence had on the Western Blöc's side linking Assad to the crime, then they have every reason to disspell that now, yet haven't for whatever reason. It suggests that they actually have no hard evidence whatsoever and would like for people to believe them regardless of that.

I concede, there's nothing concrete to go on. It's all maybes at this point. Seems like Assad has no reason to attack his people. But nevertheless, there's the possibility that he did it, since he is a shady guy.

So let's say for the sake of speculation he did. Then what? What would be the justification of the missile strike when the peeps don't want to go to war to Syria and is in fact one of the reasons Trump was so popular, that being wanting to get out of foreign wars?

The fact is that even if this is true, this "moral obligation" excuse isn't a good enough reason to take the risks. Unless there's an ulterior motive regarding Syria or some benefit they aren't elaborating on, there isn't much point.

As I understand it, the strike didn't actually need Congress's approval in order to be done. It seems that the President can conduct military operations without the approval of Congress so long as a) they notify Congress 48 hours beforehand (he did) and b) said military operation(s) does not last 60 days or more without Congressional approval (it was a one day thing). Multiple presidents in the past have taken military action without getting the ok from Congress first.

There's still the matter of whether or not it violated other laws, or if the strike should even have been conducted at all though.

But I doubt that a lot of Americans will care if it was legal or not, or justified or not.

I didn't make this tweet but here's my super hot take

To me, it's the same old story.
There are probably groups of people who are playing very large scale and long-term games with the world, they have their own desires and goals. To us, it would be impossible to really know who is the 'bad guy' in these matters. I mean it's hard to even get solid verifiable information on things that happened decades ago, let alone current developing events.

For us, we just get a lot of media stories and opinions based on barely any real information and mostly just made from assumptions, or made to support the story from either side. Like depending on who and where you are, you'll just get different propaganda. It seems to me like now it is very hard to ever find actual source material or documentation for most global events, it's like a big sea of 'information' that gets harder to search through every year.

Whatever the case, unless you're one of the people making money from weapons and violence, nothing good can come from these events. Not just from the direct damage it does to lives when international acts of aggression occur, but the long term effects on psychology for people worldwide. Many places now for many people in the world, there is no certainty they can even have any kind of life. How can you work to improve yourself and your community if you don't even know in 10 years who will be running things, who will be worshiped and who will be demonised, will your town or state even exist? What will even be right or wrong for anyone in such a volatile and confusing situation? It's impossible for many people to ever feel like they will have any place in the future of the world. It's very sad if you think too much about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

This wouldn't be the first time the US and UK have outright lied to go to war either for ideological gain or financial gain.

Let me put it to you this way. Why, when the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the leading internal Chemical Weapons watchdog) were due to land in Syria and inspect both the site of the alleged chemical attack and the facilities the weapons apparently came from, did the Western bloc destroy said facilities hours before the inspection teams landed? There was no parliamentary hearing on it in the UK, no Congressional approval in the USA, the UN did not approve of any joint strike. So why? Why destroy our 'concrete evidence'?

Also worth noting

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/british-spooks-pinpoint-russian-lab-12306641

https://news.sky.com/story/no-suspects-identified-yet-in-salisbury-nerve-agent-attack-uk-national-security-adviser-says-11355028

The UK already lied recently about having concrete evidence linking a country to a chemical attack whilst refusing to share any evidence either with parliament or the international community.