{"id":15057,"date":"2017-04-10T10:10:54","date_gmt":"2017-04-10T15:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=15057"},"modified":"2017-06-26T10:04:02","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T15:04:02","slug":"u-s-strikes-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2017\/04\/10\/u-s-strikes-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. strikes Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump issued a missile strike on Syria in response to the chemical attack on a Syrian hospital. Trump described the attack as necessary to \u201cprevent and deter the use of deadly chemical weapons.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYears of previous attempts at changing Assad\u2019s behavior have all failed, and failed very dramatically,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAs a result, the refugee crisis continues to deepen, and the region continues to destabilize, threatening the United States and its allies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The strike, which was issued late Thursday night, targeted runway aircraft and fuel points. Near 60 cruise missiles were used.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that a Syrian colonel had been killed in the airstrike and the airstrike damaged over a dozen hangars, a fuel depot and an air defense base. Late Friday the SOHR reported the Syrian military conducted actions from the same air base that was targeted in the strikes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The world reacted to the airstrikes on Friday morning. Russia, Syria and Iran criticized the strikes while the United Kingdom and Australia put their full support behind the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President of France, Francois Hollande issued a joint statement in which they said Syrian President Assad \u201cbears full responsibility for this development.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Hollande and Merkel, the repeated use of chemical weapons and crimes against his own population \u201chad to be sanctioned.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A military source in Moscow said that Russian ship loaded with cruise missiles would begin to head towards the Mediterranean on Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Russian ship armed with cruise missiles Kalibr will visit the logistics base in Tartus, Syria,\u201d the source told TASS, a Russian news agency.<\/span><\/p>\n

Skepticism over the validity of the missile strike mirrors that of the chemical weapons strike of 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem claims the Syrian army bombed a warehouse belonging to al-Qaeda that contained chemical weapons or materials, not that Assad used chemical weapons.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Russia called the attack an \u201cact of aggression\u201d and suspended an agreement that prevents direct conflict between U.S. and Russian forces in the Syrian region.<\/span><\/p>\n

Known as the \u201cdeconfliction line,\u201d U.S. and Russian forces exchanged information to prevent incidents. The agreement was enacted in 2015 after a Russian air campaign in Syria. <\/span><\/p>\n

Russian forces were given no more than a 90 minute notice of the attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hawaiian representative Tulsi Gabbard criticized Trump in a statement saying the strike was \u201cshort-sighted\u201d and that Trump \u201cacted recklessly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt angers and saddens me that President Trump has taken the advice of war hawks and escalated our illegal regime change war to overthrow the Syrian government,\u201d Gabbard said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Syrian President Bashar al- Assad called the attack an \u201cunjust and arrogant aggression.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Congressional lawmakers chastised Trump for not getting their approval for the missile strike. International and domestic lawmakers questioned if Trump\u2019s actions were conducted legally.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we all condemn the atrocities in Syria, the United States was not attacked,\u201d said Republican Senator Rand Paul said on Twitter. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe president needs congressional authorization for military action as required by the Constitution, and I call on him to come to Congress for a proper debate. Our prior interventions in this region have done nothing to make us safer, and Syria will be no different,\u201d Senator Paul said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham released a joint statement praising Trump for the missile strike saying that he \u201cconfronted a pivotal moment in Syria and took action.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Democrats Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi endorsed Trump\u2019s attack on the Syrian airbase.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMaking sure Assad knows that when he commits such despicable atrocities he will pay a price is the right thing to do,\u201d Schumer said in a statement released late Thursday. \u201cI salute the professionalism and skill of our Armed Forces who took action today.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Barton Kleen<\/strong>
\nExecutive Editor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump issued a missile strike on Syria in response to the chemical attack on a Syrian hospital. Trump described the attack as necessary to \u201cprevent and deter the use of deadly chemical weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10290,"featured_media":15029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1999,1918,322,1382,1388,1917,1425],"class_list":["post-15057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-barton-kleen","tag-missile-strike","tag-national","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-syria","tag-tartan-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Syria1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-3UR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15057"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15573,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15057\/revisions\/15573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}