I can’t believe how stupid our foreign policy elites really are. I’m not going to argue that they have any good or easy choices, but Jesus:
A wide range of officials characterized the action under consideration as “limited,” perhaps lasting no more than one or two days. The attacks, which are expected to involve scores of Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from American destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, would not be focused on chemical weapons storage sites, which would risk an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe and could open up the sites to raids by militants, officials said.
Yes, definitely wise not to explode a bunch of chemical weapons to prevent the explosion of a bunch of chemical weapons. Kudos for that. But “scores” of tomahawk missiles over, at most, two days, is going to do what? We even know, roughly, the upper limit of how many missiles we can fire. We have four destroyers in the region along with an unknown number of nuclear submarines. Each destroyer has about 24 tomahawks. The submarines carry a couple more. So, we’re probably talking about 100 strikes overall. How much firepower is that?
Weapons experts said that Tomahawk missile strikes, while politically and psychologically significant, could have a limited tactical effect. The weapons are largely fuel and guidance systems and carry relatively small high-explosive warheads. One conventional version contains about 260 pounds of explosives and another version carries about 370 pounds. Each is less than the explosive power of a single 1,000-pound air-dropped bomb.
We’re talking about spending about 100 million dollars in ordinance alone to make 100 small explosions, and what do we hope to accomplish with those 100 small explosions?
The strikes would instead be aimed at military units that have carried out chemical attacks, the headquarters overseeing the effort and the rockets and artillery that have launched the attacks, according to the options being reviewed within the administration.
An American official said that the initial target lists included fewer than 50 sites, including air bases where Syria’s Russian-made attack helicopters are deployed. The list includes command and control centers as well as a variety of conventional military targets.
So, now we not only know that the Assad regime definitely carried out the chemical attacks, but we know which units are responsible. If true, can the NSA or whoever please provide some concrete evidence? If they’re targeting approximately 50 targets, they have basically two missiles per target. That’s not enough targets to do anything about artillery and it’s not enough missiles per target to take out an airfield filled with attack helicopters or destroy a military compound.
So, we hit them with this ticky-tack tomahawk onslaught that does basically nothing to their ability to use chemical weapons, does almost nothing to ground their air capability, does nothing to turn the tide of the war, and then we sit back and do what?
Does it ever occur to anyone that when your official policy is regime change and you are openly weaponizing the opposition, that you can’t plausibly, or sanely, fire 100 missiles at a country and then just stop? Or that, if the problem is a willingness and capability and record of using chemical weapons, you have to at least eliminate the problem before you stop? Or that attacking the regime without significantly setting back the regime’s standing in the war will allow the regime to boast about standing up to a great power and actually embolden them to be more defiant? Or that we don’t gain more loyal allies by making ineffectual symbolic statements to promote human rights that they don’t care about and that don’t actually help them?
This is the problem with the Do Something Caucus. They don’t want to do anything for a very good reason, but they still feel like something must be done. So they are going to do something stupid that will probably make things worse and quickly force us to do what we quite wisely didn’t want to do in the first place.
But, okay, you’re going to do something. You only have 100 small bombs to do it with. I say, blow up 100 houses belonging to the Assad family and their highest and most trusted associates. If they’re at home, good. If they’re not at home, well, now they’re homeless. Target the assholes. Destroy their property. Make them pay.
But, first, prove that they did it. Prove that they did it, and realize that, in war, the enemy has the ability to fight back. So, if you’re going to escalate, accomplish your goals. The way we talk about this, it’s like we have a helpless patient tied to a gurney and we can choose any instrument of torture we want to torment them with without worrying for a moment that the patient might find a way to break his bonds and turn us into a corpse.
For the most part, we’ve been following a prudent course with Syria. That is about to change.
