Military strikes against Syria could apparently begin as soon as Thursday, 29 August, which is coincidentally John McCain’s 77th birthday… “Happy Birthday, I gotcha that war you’ve been wanting?”
“Sending a message” through “limited” strikes might seem to satisfy war-weary Americans desire to perhaps maybe do something, but certainly not much of something, but it could be a superbly terrible idea.
There is a very important question that hasn’t been answered yet: Would the Assad’s regime reaction to an American attack be “limited” as well? Is that a gamble we should be willing to take?
Let’s not forget the intimate relationship the Assad Regime has with Hezbollah, a full spectrum terrorist entity with a history of attacking the United States and its allies. We should expect more of a reaction than Assad’s hackers messing with the New York Times.
Additionally, “sending a message” through strategic bombing hasn’t worked too well in the past. Rolling Thunder which failed to accomplish “Strategic Persuasion” of any sort. And what message was sent when cruise missiles leveled a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan in 1998? Are we ready to accept that more errors will occur, and that dropping things that explode from the sky is never as “surgical” as advertised?
John Thorne is a senior consultant at Diligent Innovations, a defense and national security strategy consulting firm in Washington, DC.
Photo Credit: CakeWrecks.com
Tom Quiggin 
Not so fast Senator:
AP is reporting as of 1200 EDT 20 Aug 2013 that:
An intercept of Syrian military officials discussing the strike was among low-level staff, with no direct evidence tying the attack back to an Assad insider or even a senior Syrian commander, the officials said.
So while Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that links between the attack and the Assad government are “undeniable,” U.S. intelligence officials are not so certain that the suspected chemical attack was carried out on Assad’s orders, or even completely sure it was carried out by government forces, the officials said.
Another possibility that officials would hope to rule out: that stocks had fallen out of the government’s control and were deployed by rebels in a callous and calculated attempt to draw the West into the war.