Trump's efforts to get the Comey/Cohen stories off the front page may have worked for a day, but Syria, Russia, and Iran are already taunting the Tangerine Tyrant as last night's missile strikes against Syria were mostly intercepted by Russian air defenses.
Syria, Russia and Iran shrugged off strikes on Saturday by the United States and its allies against three Syrian chemical weapons facilities, which drew angry condemnations but no indication that there would be a wider escalation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the U.S.-led strikes against Syrian chemical weapons facilities as an “act of aggression,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatalloh Ali Khamenei tweeted that the attack represented “a war crime,” and the Syrian Foreign Ministry described it as “barbarous aggression.”
But the pre-dawn volleys of cruise missiles launched by the United States, Britain and France were limited to three sites linked to Syria’s chemical weapons program and triggered no retaliation. Russia said they did little damage and that most of the cruise missiles targeting Syrian sites had been intercepted by Syrian air defenses, including all of those that were bound for the site from which last week’s alleged chemical attack originated.
World leaders sought to tamp down any tensions associated with the strike.
“This was not about interfering in a civil war and it was not about regime change,” Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May told a news conference in London. “We expressly sought to avoid escalation and did everything to avoid civilian casualties.”
In Damascus, there was defiance and relief as residents jolted awake by explosions at around 4 a.m. realized the strikes would be limited. Syrian state television broadcast scenes of citizens taking to the streets to celebrate and demonstrate their support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, waving Syrian, Russian and Iranian flags.
“The honorable cannot be humiliated,” said a post from the Twitter account maintained by Assad’s office shortly after the attack. A few hours later the account tweeted a video of him walking nonchalantly to work through the halls of the Syrian presidential palace.
The United States and its allies said three facilities associated with Syria’s chemical weapons program were targeted: a scientific research center in the greater Damascus area, a chemical weapons storage facility west of Homs, and a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and command post, also near Homs.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said they did little damage. In a statement the ministry said that of 103 cruise missiles fired in the U.S.-led airstrike, 71 were shot down by Syria’s Soviet-made air-defense systems. The intercepted missiles included all 12 of those bound for the Al-Dumayr military airfield near Damascus, where the chemical attack that triggered the crisis was allegedly launched.
If you want to know what Putin's retaliation was for being called out by both British PM Theresa May and Trump for last month's attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, you're looking at it, and once again Putin has won a near complete victory.
Yes, the chemical weapon attack by Assad a couple weeks ago was abhorrent, but it was also obvious in its intent to get under Trump's skin and show the world that the US and UK can no longer just launch cruise missiles with impunity. The Russians still insist that Britian was behind the chemical weapon attacks both on their home soil and in Syria and the US is aiding and abetting in war crimes, and both Trump and May look like fools.
And remember, this is being done all while Trump's travel ban preventing refugees from war-torn Syria, who we've been bombing since day one of the Trump regime, from entering the US as the worst refugee crisis in recent history continues to unfold. He fires missiles into their country, then when their people flee the hell he's brought to them, he calls them terrorists and leaves them to rot.
Trump is so predictable in his egomania that Putin is having a field day with it, and once again he's gotten the upper hand on proving just how easily he can make Trump his puppet, this time for all the world to see. And Russia is now promising retaliation.
And the trouble back here in the states? That hasn't gone away just because a petulant man-child threw a $100 million military temper tantrum. And what does Trump get for his troubles? His most virulent supporters like Alex Jones and Michael Savage have utterly turned on him this weekend, vowing that Trump has given in to the "globalists".
On we go.
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