Trump’s Tomahawk Diplomacy in Syria

The National Interest

"As horrific and as unacceptable as the use of chemical weapons is, and as odious as Assad’s regime remains, the U.S. would not be using coercive force if there were not interests worthy to protect."

. . . "The ends of America’s strategy are clear. We can’t tolerate a return of the Caliphate. We can’t watch while Iran presses a dagger at Israel’s heart, risking a regional war. We don’t want the problems of Syria to bleed over and destabilize Iraq and Jordan. We don’t masses of refugees on the road again.

"Now the challenge for the Trump administration is to transition to a regional footprint that achieves those ends in a sustained manner over time. The strike should help give the U.S. the time and space to put that presence in place."

A Heritage Foundation vice president, James Jay Carafano directs the think tank’s research on issues of defense and foreign relations. 

On the bombing of Syria

Thomas Lifson: A ‘Goldilocks’ air strike on Syria  . . . "But so far, the strike on three targets in Syria appears to have been not too much, not too little, but just right to deliver the necessary message. Here is the official Pentagon map of the targets:" (Click to enlarge)

. . . "The first message is that the use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated.  The huge “red Line” blunder of Obama has been corrected again. This is more than a do-gooder concern for humanity, even though that is what is being said, for the most part. If these weapons are used and not punished, they will used again and again. Not only can terrorists gain access by capturing them in Syria, chlorine is not that hard to fabricate. A poison gas attack on Israel or the United States is not out of the question.

"But there are other messages being delivered.

"The second one is to Russia:" . . .

. . . "The third message is to Kim Jong-un and the mullahs of Tehran:" . . .

Russia claims Syria air defences shot down 71 of 103 missile  "The Russian military has claimed that the Syrian air defences, whose most modern weapon is a three-decades-old Russian-supplied anti-aircraft system, shot down 71 of 103 missiles fired by the US and its allies, the UK and France.

"As further details began to emerge about the sites targeted by the US-led strikes, Col Gen Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian military said the strikes had not caused any casualties and that Syrian military facilities suffered only minor damage

"Although it was not possible to verify the claims, the most up-to-date system that Moscow has supplied to the Syrian regime is the short range Pantsir S-1, which has an anti-missile capability." . . .

Mattis: Syria Strikes a ‘One-Time Shot,’ Further Operations Will Depend on Assad  . . . "While last year’s strikes were done unilaterally, and hit one target — a Syrian regime airfield that housed about 17 percent of its air force –  Dunford said Friday’s strikes were conducted with two allies on multiple sites and would “result in a long-term degradation of Syria’s capability to develop chemical weapons.”

“ 'Important infrastructure was destroyed. They will lose years of research and development data, specialized equipment, and expensive chemical weapons precursors,” he said." . . .

Click to enlarge

The Syrian War Is Actually Many Wars  . . . "The United States is in Syria mainly because of isis. At a recent event in Washington, the U.S. envoy to the anti-isis coalition Brett McGurk spelled this out: “We are in Syria to fight isis. That is our mission and our mission isn’t over, and we’re going to complete that mission.” More recently, Secretary of Defense James Mattis told Congress that the United States was not there to take sides in the broader civil war." . . .

Syria's Assad vows to 'crush terrorism' after Western attack  Generally Assad and Putin refer to the anti-Assad forces as terrorists. Meaning those gassed by Assad. TD

How Will Moscow Respond to the Syria Strikes?
For now, the ball is in Moscow's court--and we will see what its response looks like.


Syrian air strikes LIVE: US, UK and France hit Assad's chemical weapons
This article repeats the claim that most missles were shot down.

"Syrian state TV has broadcast these images which it claims proves it shot down some missiles heading for targets in the country yesterday."

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows the damage of the
Syrian Scientific Research Center which was attacked by U.S., British and French military
strikes to punish President Bashar Assad for suspected chemical attack against civilians

Live from Damascus: Syrian TV covers the air raids
Pretty much the same opinion of President Trump as CNN and MSNBC.
. . . "Also at the channel’s website were some new political cartoons and after a search I discovered a whole page of them. The captions for each one, in Arabic, are on the side of the cartoons and can be translated online.

The cartoon at the top, and probably the most memorable one, was a caricature of President Donald Trump. The caption via Google’s translation service translates as “Terrorism ... To the dustbin of history.” “Brush artist Nidal_Khalil.' ”

Ortas

"The cartoons, which largely transcend language barriers, offer direct and telling insights into the official propaganda being issued in a hot spot on the other side of the world."

Obama’s anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism reigned at the IRS from 2010- 2017…

Phyllis Chesler

How one courageous proactive journalist took on the IRS over this issue - and won.

Chesler

 "After a “long, lonely and expensive seven year struggle,” one that she alone, on behalf of Z STREET bore, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, the founder of Z STREET has just won a significant legal victory which grants her organization tax-exempt status and definitively exposes Obama’s IRS as obsessively anti-Israel.
Ironically, Marcus founded Z STREET in 2009 in order to “educate Americans about the Middle East and Israel’s defense against terror.”

"The Z Street application was at first delayed, then frozen, because the IRS claimed as a defense, that Israel was viewed as a “terrorist entity,” and a country “with terrorism.”

"Many of us suspected that Obama’s administration had politicized Homeland Security, the DOJ, the FBI, and the American relationship to the United Nations in ways that favored Islamism, Islamic terrorism, Palestine, Iran, and that demonized Zionism and Israel’s attempts at self-defense.

"Z STREET”s successful lawsuit exposes how the Obama administration, through its power to grant or withhold tax-exempt status to groups, politicized and corrupted a policy of even-handedness, transparency, and accountability at the IRS."
. . . 

. . . A: The legal process is an unwieldy, awkward tool for correcting injustice, but sometimes, if you stick to it long enough, it actually works!
Lowenthal-Marcus' recent article on the lawsuit appeared in the Wall Street Journal . . .

"Phyllis Chesler is an Emerita Professor of Psychology at City University of New York. She is a best-selling author, a legendary feminist leader, a retired psychotherapist and expert courtroom witness. She has lectured and organized political, legal, religious, and human rights campaigns in the United States, Canada, Europe, Israel, and the Far East.  . . ."

Hollywood writers coach progressive candidates as left plots 2018 course

So Hollywood will not only shape our culture and morals, but our politics as well. So what's new?

McClatchy

"The nation’s capital was plunged into chaos this week, beset by Paul Ryan’s retirement, Donald Trump’s threats, and a raid on the home and office of the president’s personal lawyer.

"But removed from the tumult, a few hundred men and women were having a very different experience in a Washington hotel. Gathered for a candidate-training conference, these progressives were reveling in what they believe is the political moment that will vault the liberal movement into power not just in Washington but nationwide.

“ 'What you are doing is making a political revolution,” Sen. Bernie Sanders told the crowd, which rewarded him with uproarious applause throughout his speech. Many of the candidates in attendance count Sanders as their political hero, crediting his unexpectedly effective primary against Hillary Clinton with inspiring their own candidacy.

"The multi-day event, organized by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, drew 450 candidates – many of them running for office for the first time. Not surprisingly, with progressive energy sweeping the country, it was the largest such event the PCCC has ever held. (Last year’s gathering drew a then-record 300 candidates.)" . . .

US conducts missile strikes on Syria with Britain and France

American Military News 
Note: This article has been updated to reflect Secretary of Defense Mattis’ and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dunford comments on the Syrian missile strikes.
"Friday night President Trump addressed the nation in a televised news conference announcing that the United States was carrying out a strategic strikes on Syria with Britain and France as he was speaking.
"The strikes, which contained nearly double the amount of missiles as the 2017 Syrian strike, is in response to Syria’s dictator Assad gassing entire families to death Saturday night in Douma and East Ghouta.
"Groups in the area, which put Assad’s chemical gas attack death toll at more than 70, said many residents were hiding in cellars, suffocating from poison gas.
"There are images and videos emerging of explosions in Damascus, the Syrian capital." . . .

#BREAKING - First photo of #Syrian air defense missile launched against #US, #UK and #French cruise missiles striking the capital #Damascus. Via @AlSuraEnglish

Haley to Russia on Syria’s Chemical Weapons: ‘We Know Who Did This’
"If Russia kept its promise to remove chemical weapons from Syria, “we would not be here today.' ”

Efforts To Minimize Civilian Casualties In Syria Appear Successful  "Looks like there is some additional good news from the airstrikes in Syria tonight: not only were the strikes we conducted in coordination with Britain and France successful in hitting their selected targets, early local sources are reporting no civilian casualties (disregarding of course the obvious Russian/Syrian allied propaganda outlets).

"In a briefing from the Pentagon earlier tonight, Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis described the avoidance of civilian casualties as a top priority.

“ 'We did very close analysis,” said Mattis. “We did everything we could, in our intelligence assessment and our planning, to minimize to the maximum degree possible any chance of civilian casualties. We are very much aware this is difficult to do in a situation like this.' ” . . .

Comey Didn't Tell Trump the Infamous Dossier Was Financed By Hillary Clinton

Katie Pavlich   "In the fall of 2016 just before the presidential election, then FBI Director James Comey informed Republican candidate Donald Trump they had received "materials" alleging salacious misconduct by the business man. Comey warned the candidate the information could be used as blackmail.

"Those "materials" Comey referred to was the now infamous and fake Russian dossier put together by British spy Christopher Steele. Steele was paid for the "opposition research" by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. 
"When Comey briefed Trump, he knew where the funding for the dossier came from but failed to disclose those facts at the time.
"Did you tell him that the Steele dossier had been financed by his political opponents?" ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asked in an interview set to air this weekend.
" 'No. I didn’t," Comey responded. " 'But did he have a right to know that?" Stephanopoulos followed up.

" 'That it had been financed by his political opponents? I don't know the answer to that," Comey said." . . .

HOW A REPUBLIC DIES: The Federal Leviathan Wages All-Out War With a Duly Elected President

 "There are plenty of gatekeepers to keep a common sense idea from being implemented. If a congressman proposes that sensible measure you suggest to him, it will never leave the committee or it’ll be watered down. The Senate will neuter it or the president, on the advice of his advisors, will veto. And then came Trump." 

Daniel Greenfield at the Doug Ross Journal  "In the early seventies, political operatives disguised as delivery men broke into a Washington D.C. office. These efforts to spy on the political opposition would culminate in what we know as Watergate.

"In the late teens, political operatives disguised as FBI agents, NSA personnel and other employees of the Federal government eavesdropped, harassed and raided the offices of the political opposition.

"The raids of Michael Cohen’s hotel room, home and office are just this week’s Watergate.

"Political operatives have now seized privileged communications between the President of the United States and his lawyer. Despite fairy tales about a clean process, these communications will be harvested by the counterparts of Peter Strzok, who unlike him are still on the case at the FBI, some of it will appear in the Washington Post and the New York Times, and some will be passed along to other political allies.

"That’s what happened at every juncture of Watergate 2.0. And it only follows that it will happen again.

"Just like the eavesdropping, the process will be compartmentalized for maximum plausible deniability. The leakers will be protected by their superiors. The media will shrilly focus the public’s attention on the revelations in the documents rather than on the more serious crimes committed in obtaining them.

"Nixon couldn’t have even dreamed of doing this in his wildest fantasies. But Obama could and did. Now his operatives throughout the government are continuing the work that they began during his regime." . . .

The Bolton-Pompeo Package

Columnist Paul R. Pillar likes neither Mr. Bolton nor President Trump. However former assistant foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Binyamin Netayahu, Caroline Glick, calls the Bolton appointment "brilliant"

The National Interest

Pompeo

"The Senate is about to have an opportunity to weigh in on another highly important foreign policy position, that of secretary of state, for which President Trump has nominated Mike Pompeo.  Senators ought to consider that nomination in tandem with the appointment of Bolton as national security adviser, even though the Senate formally has a role with only one of those appointments and not with the other.  Senators should consider the two as a package deal.  They should not vote to confirm Pompeo if they are uncomfortable with either part of the package.

"The main reason to approach the Pompeo nomination this way is that the nation currently has a president who, sad to say, needs restraint.  He will need restraint all the more during the coming months as troubles of his own making increase the chance that he will lash out in destructive ways. The copious commentary during the fifteen months of the Trump presidency about having “adults in the room” to restrain the worst urges of an inexperienced and impulsive president speaks to an important truth. " . . .

Caroline Glick: Bolton’s appointment is a brilliant America first move

Bolton

. . . "While it is true that Bolton is from Washington – or Baltimore, to be precise – and although it is true that he held senior foreign policy positions in both Bush administrations, he has always been a thorn in the side of the establishment rather than a member of that establishment.

"For the better part of three decades, Bolton has bravely held positions that fly in the face of the establishment’s innate preference for appeasement. He was a vocal critic, for example, of then-President Bill Clinton’s disastrous nuclear diplomacy with North Korea.

"The 1994 “Agreed Framework” that Clinton concluded with Pyongyang was touted as a peaceful resolution of the nuclear crisis with North Korea. In exchange for shuttering – but not destroying — its nuclear installations, North Korea received light water reactors from the U.S. and massive economic relief. As Bolton warned it would, North Korea pocketed the concessions and gifts and continued to develop its nuclear weapons. In other words, far from preventing North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, the Agreed Framework preserved the North Korean nuclear program and enabled the regime to develop it effectively with U.S. assistance.

"For his warnings, Bolton has been reviled as a “warmonger” and a “superhawk” by the foreign policy elite, which has gone out if its way to undercut him." . . .

'Chappaquiddick': The Grim Record of a Kennedy Cover-Up

John Podhoretz at Weekly Standard

New movie approaches the grisly story non-ideologically.

"The existence of Chappaquiddick, the new movie about the 1969 car accident from which Ted Kennedy walked away while his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne likely suffocated slowly inside his partly sunken Oldsmobile, is a miracle of a kind. The script by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan was included on the 2015 Black List, the annual compendium of yet-to-be-sold screenplays of un-common quality. Only a third of Black List titles ever make it to the big screen. And the fact that Allen and Logan’s screenplay offered a cold-eyed view of a liberal icon gave everyone reason to think it would stay among the unfilmed.

"And yet filmed it was—a strong, astringent piece of work, beautifully directed by John Curran and centering on a brilliantly understated performance by the Australian Jason Clarke. And released it has been—by a company called Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures, run by former stand-up comedian Byron Allen (no relation to Taylor Allen). “There are some very powerful people who tried to put pressure on me not to release this movie,” Byron Allen told reporters. “They went out of their way to try and influence me in a negative way. I made it very clear that I’m not about the right, I’m not about the left. I’m about the truth.' ” . . .

. . . Chappaquiddick has one grave flaw. Teddy interacts repeatedly with his stroke-afflicted father Joseph (Bruce Dern), who speaks the word “alibi,” slaps him across the face, and in general makes it clear he loathes his boy. I hold no brief for Joseph Kennedy, one of the more repellent Americans of the 20th century, but there’s no evidence any of this happened or that he was even compos mentis by the time of Chappaquiddick. The falsity of these scenes takes away from the devastatingly suggestive tone of the rest. . . .

Report: Trump to Pardon Cheney’s Former Aide Scooter Libby

Legal Insurrection

"Yes, Comey had involvement in the Libby case. In 2003, Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the case, which meant responsibilities fell into the lap of the deputy attorney general. That man? James Comey."

"Reports have emerged that President Donald Trump will pardon former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby, who received a conviction of lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice in 2007.

"Libby received his conviction over the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity. He had a 30 month sentence, but President George W. Bush commuted it.

"From NBC News:

Libby was convicted of one count of obstruction, two counts of perjury and one count of lying to the FBI about how he learned Plame’s identity and whom he told. Prosecutors said he learned about Plame from Cheney and others, discussed her name with reporters and, fearing prosecution, made up a story to make those discussions seem innocuous.

The trial revealed that top members of the Bush administration were eager to discredit Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who accused the administration of doctoring prewar intelligence on Iraq.

. . . "CNN reported that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said “that he was the source who first revealed” Plame’s identity to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in 2003:" . . .

. . . "As his second term ended, “Bush mulled candidates for presidential pardons.” Cheney tried to persuade Bush to pardon Libby, but it never happened.

"The commute of Libby’s sentence kept him out of prison, but the conviction remained and disbarred as a lawyer. The bar reinstated him in 2016." . . .

George W. Bush: Dick Cheney Was Angry I Didn't Pardon Scooter Libby

Libby was sentenced to thirty months in prison. He ultimately avoided jail time thanks to Mr. Bush, who commuted his sentence to $250,000 in fines and two years of probation.

Cory Booker disgraced himself questioning Pompeo (Updated)

Thomas Lifson  "See also: What a Crumby Thing for Cory Booker to Say*

"Once upon a time, Cory Booker posed as a dedicated reformer running against a corrupt political establishment.  An Academy Award-nominated documentaryabout his first run for political office portrayed him in a heroic light and led to his becoming mayor of Newark, and on to the U.S. Senate, representing the Garden State.  But since tasting the waters of Washington, he has fallen about as far as a politician can, from hero to hack.

"During Senate confirmation hearings for Mike Pompeo's nomination as secretary of state, Booker made an ass of himself, shamelessly posturing as a social justice warrior scoring points with special-interest constituencies.  Two somewhat contradictory lines of question preoccupied him.

"First, Booker posed as an advocate of religious liberty, angrily quoting something Pompeo earlier said about the need for Muslims to speak out against jihad terror attacks:" . . .

* ". . .  presidential wannabe Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) blamed middle-class Americans keeping more of their money and corporations sharing more of their profits for driving up the debt:" . . .

UPDATE: Senator Booker's lust for ignorance  "We have an endless war in Afghanistan, a dictator gassing civilians in Syria, a nuclearized Korean peninsula, trade agreements under negotiation, tensions between Russia and its former Soviet satellite republics, an Islamic invasion of Europe, and frenemies in NATO.
"So what did Democratic Senator Cory Booker ask the nominee for secretary of State about?
"Gay sex." . . .

 Meanwhile, Democrats are blocking the confirmation Richard Grenell as ambassador to Germany because he is gay. Democrats are all for gay people, unless they are conservative.

More at Don Surber

Turns out Comey gave Hillary a pass on emails because he thought she would win

James Comey's memoir, pompously titled A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, set for release on April 17, is out from the reviewer class, and all but one seems to have missed the bombshell in it: that Comey neglected to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her refusal to properly handle the nation's top secrets through her illegal private bathtub server, and exposed those secrets to  our nation's enemies, because he thought she would win the 2016 election.

Monica Showalter  . . . "In other words, Comey was watching the elections closely and very concerned as to their impact on the Clinton email investigation.  When he thought Hillary had it in the bag, he announced his re-opening of the case in the last week of October, following pressure from the New York cops who had found that the classified emails had spread to Anthony Weiner's pervert-filled computer, where his proclivities for little girls eventually put him in the can.  The information from the cops was going to spill out anyway.  And the fix was in that Hillary would be let off the hook, by Comey, as he conspired with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, as emails uncovered by Sharyl Attkisson revealed last January.

"The implication is that he gave her the initial pass on the emails because he wanted her to win.  He was focused on her "legitimacy."  Busting sailors for careless photos was all fine with him, but he had no problem with Hillary opening a private server illegally in some guy's bathroom because it was all about her winning.  He'd give her a stern warning instead of an arrest warrant in the name of his "integrity," yet there was no way he wouldn't protect her "legitimacy," which wasn't his job.  It's always OK if the person in power does it, the person he wants to  win does it, right, James?  Laws are for little people.

"What we learn here is that Comey was as political an animal as it was possible to be in his decisions about investigating both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.  He didn't succeed with this philosophy, so now he's doing his memoirs.  Let's hope they make a quick trip to the remainder bins." . . .