Syria flying missions out of air base attacked by trump

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As the administration and its provisional band of interventionist boosters pointed out Friday morning, the previous night’s missile strike was largely symbolic, a limited and proportional affair designed to send Assad—and the world—a message.


The attack “sent an important message to Assad and the people of Syria that America is not going to tolerate these kinds of atrocities,“ noted Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff in the Department of Defense and the C.I.A.

“The intent here wasn’t just to punish; it was deter future use,” retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward told ABC's Good Morning America. White House officials carefully telegraphed the same message, calling the strike “a warning shot”.

The danger, as it became increasingly clear, was that the “warning shot” may have been even more symbolic than it originally appeared. As the Times reported, the U.S. military had in fact warned the Russian military before attacking the Shayrat Airfield, which serves as a crucial outpost for Russian forces stationed in Syria.

“Military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield,” Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said. Stockpiles of chemical weapons were not the target of the strike, either: only aircraft, aircraft shelters, storage, bunkers housing ammunition supplies and defense systems, were damaged.

As ABC News reported later on Friday, the Syrian military had apparently been tipped off to the attack—presumably by its Russian allies—and had largely evacuated by the time several dozen Tomahawk missiles landed. By Friday afternoon, jets were already taking off from the air base again, according to multiple reports.

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