Raid on Syrian Chemical Facilities Received Mixed Response – Even from Trump Loyalists

The seemingly long wait to learn exactly what is President Donald Trump’s vision of retaliation for the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons ended on Friday night when the US was joined by the United Kingdom and France in firing more than one hundred missiles at targets which were part of the Syrian chemical weapons infrastructure. But among critics of the move were strong supporters of the president, including nationally-recognized conservative pundits who have defended virtually every Trump administrative policy until now. Despite agreement that the Russians are defending and running interference for, in the president’s words, “a monster,” criticism centers around suggestions that there was nothing to be gained by the strikes for reasons including the reality that the Syrian civil was is all but over, nothing that could not be quickly re-built was damaged, and the US should not be putting its soldiers in harm’s way for a fight the United States doesn’t have a stake in. One pundit suggested to The Media Line that there is “an inherent hypocrisy in launching air strikes in retaliation for a chemical strike – regardless of how heinous a gas attack is – when the deaths of a half-million victims of Bashar Al-Assad escape retribution. Confirming the criticism of many who took President Trump to task for “signaling his moves to the enemy” – the same charge Trump himself frequently leveled at his predecessor — were reports from sources that said the attack over the weekend was easily “absorbed” because, according to a Syrian official quoted by the Reuters news agency, “We had an early warning of the strike from the Russians … and all military bases were evacuated a few days ago.”

See: https://themedialine.org/news/mission-accomplished-in-syria-would-be-blessing-for-assad-spell-trouble-for-israel/ ^[1]