Saturday 17-04-21 The U.S. Administration and Syria

(I was billed again by godaddy yesterday for my wordpress site, so I suppose I had better make use of it.)

It was a couple of weeks ago that all of a sudden the news programmes were talking about the possibility of the U.S. Administration bombing Syria. It was definitely mentioned on the BBC World Tonight news programme, and I went to sleep thinking that we were being softened up for the attack, and I thought that probably there would be more "preparation" the next day.

As it turned out though, the bombs were launched overnight, and the first news I heard in the morning was that the bombing had happened. I was a little surprised at how quickly things had happened, but not actually against the bombing happening. One thing that did raise a few concerns though, was how quickly the U.S. Administration had changed its mind. It did seem, only a few days earlier, that it was not minded to punish Syria. And then there was the emotional appeal, about the "beautiful babies", that was another thing. I don't want nations making decisions about whether to bomb other nation states when they are emotional. I want them to sit down and rationally plan for any and every outcome.

And that is where I think that the U.S. Administration erred. Yes, probably something needed to be done. But I heard that the bombed runway was back in action before the day was out. The bombs were not a surprise, and all the planes had been moved to safety. So the net effect was to spend a few million dollars on a nice firework display, so that the U.S. Administration could say "Look! we did something!" And what they actually did was:

1. Annoy Russia, who have been supporting Assad's regime, and

2. Put a very small dent in Assad's military capability.

Assad is the only power in the region which is currently capable of keeping the lid on ISIS, so by attacking Assad, the U.S. Administration is potentially giving ISIS some assistance. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend, and all that. And without any follow-up, or at least none that we can see, it looks like the message that the U.S. wants to send to Assad is that it is fine for him to oppress his own people, just not with chemical weapons. And that is a pretty sad state of affairs from where I am sitting.

TTFN