what happened?
tonight (4/6) the united states navy launched 59 tomahawk missiles from the mediterranean at a syrian air base. the strike was approved by trump, but was not approved by congress (we don’t know whether or not congress was notified prior to the strike or not).
the us launched this strike as a response to syrian president assad’s chemical warfare on his own people that killed approx 70. the strike was aimed at the air base we believe carried out the chemical warfare. so far, no casualties are reported. in 2013, a similar chemical attack happened. i believe approx 1400 died then and syria was forced to hand over its chemical weapons, though obviously they didn’t hand over all of them.
it is also important to note that in 2013 obama asked congress to approve a similar strike, but congress ignored him. this week, hillary condoned such a strike. the strike is being described by military experts as a “proportional response.”
what does this mean?
the strike is intended to show us power on the world stage and to further force assad from attacking his own people.
with concern about russia–assad’s closest ally–it is notable that the russian military was given advanced notice of the strike and it doesn’t appear that any russians were killed. the death of russians, obviously, would have other implications due to our precarious relationship with them atm.
the strike could potentially put american troops in danger of syrian military retaliation.
we don’t know if further strikes will ensue. i wouldn’t necessarily bet on it, but it’s possible.
is this constitutional?
not sure. the legal situation is unsure. usually, a president would go through congress for this, but if the administration can spin it to say that they were concerned abt the welfare of american troops, it could be constitutional. as i’ve said, though this sounds like a huge deal, it’s actually the most minor proportional response to assad, according to experts.
democrats are already voicing concern about trump and the administration’s flip on syria (earlier this week, trump said it was up to the syrian people if assad remains president and he has a history of tweeting that he wouldn’t interfere in syria while obama was president).
also:
it’s notable that michael flynn was replaced by mccaster as national security advisor and steve bannon no longer holds a position on the national security council.
it’s also extremely that important that while the trump admin says it won’t tolerate assad’s abuse of his people, he also doesn’t want to let refugees in.
here’s a washington post article on the strike: [x]
here’s some places to help syria out: doctors w/o borders and SAMS
all of this is intended to clarify the situation without personal opinions attached
updated on 4/7 at 12:15AM
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