[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by edslunch

I think people are over-analyzing this.

No, they really aren't. There are ramifications for actions like this. This could lead to being forced into a protracted engagement in Syria. It could change the balance of power in the theater. It could embolden one side in the civil war. It could take the focus off the mission against ISIS. It could set a standard that the US can't live up to. It could further harm the relationship between the US and its allies. It could give this egomaniac in the (Winter) White House a taste of the power at his finger tips and embolden him to use those weapons with more regularity. There are all sorts of issues and potential fallout to consider.

Say you're in a bar than this guy is being really loud and obnoxious toward this hot chick. She's rebuffing his advances and he becomes verbally abusive and grabs her by the arm. So you walk up and you slug the guy in the face, because that's what you immediately think is a great solution to the problem. Only problem is that you didn't do any damage to the guy and really haven't changed the situation, except to make it more complex and much more likely to spin out of control and into a larger problem.

Now, should you have just gone up and slugged the guy without considering outcomes and what could possibly happen as result? Or are you just one of those guys who does #### without thinking things through?

Syria crossed a line that the world has agreed shouldn't be crossed, and the US punished them for it.

Punished them? That's a laugh. That $100M worth of cruise missiles had little effect. Syria was flying sorties out of that same airbase the very next day.

And who the hell made the United States the world cop? Who said it was their responsibility to dole out "justice" American style? Who gets to send cruise missiles into the sovereign airspace of the US, the next time the US crosses a line, like using drones to conduct an assassination in another sovereign nation?

It's a simple black and white, 'law and order' transaction that seems pretty consistent with Trump's general approach (his previous tweets about Obama's handing of Syria notwithstanding).

Except the issue isn't black and white. No issue is black and white. There is still confusion as to who was responsible for the use of the weapons, if it was Syria or Russia.

All the discussion about effectiveness, impact on strategy, why don't regular bombs count, this is helping ISIS, this is a false flag, etc. seem to be reaching for a bigger story.

Or it could be people are just asking the questions that should have been answered before 59 cruise missiles were launched toward another sovereign nation. They want to make sure that our guy thinks about the ramifications of his actions before he acts, which has been a life-long challenge for Donald Trump.