Got Russia troubles? Why not bomb Syria?

I went to bed last night trying to get my head around the missile attack on Syria, trying to formulate an opinion, trying to determine how I felt about it. Sometimes, I find the best way to do that is to list some pertinent facts, then go back and read them and watch as my essay basically writes itself.

You’re welcome to play along while I formulate my opinion. Here goes:

* First off, I don’t like war – especially not one where we inject ourselves uninvited into another country’s conflict. I guess you’d say I’m a pacifist. I don’t mind being called that.

* I did support George Bush’s original attack on Afghanistan after 911 when he went after Osama Bin Laden, because people had flown airplanes into American buildings and killed 3,000 people. In that instance, even a pacifist knows we couldn’t just sit back and do nothing, so we did what we did and everybody jumped on board.

* This case is different because we weren’t attacked or even threatened by Syria. What happened there was horrific, but horrific stuff happens every day somewhere in the world and we don’t shoot off missiles because of it. Check out what’s going on in Western and Central Africa, for a start.

* I have never thought we should be the world police. Apparently Alternative President Donald J. Trump believed that, too, until he didn’t. I’ll get to why he changed his mind in a minute.

* It occurs to me that humanitarian atrocities like the Syrian gas attack on civilians are among the reasons why we have a United Nations. If action against Syria was required, why didn’t they do it?

* When he was campaigning and again after he was elected, Trump said he’d never announce war plans in advance because it would give the target a chance to escape. I’m wondering then why he notified Russia about his Syria plan before pulling the trigger on the missiles.

* I saw some video footage of the aftermath on CNN. It looks to me like we blew up some rocks and made some dents in the desert. It was not exactly “shock and awe.” It was more like “aw, shucks.”

* The president shouldn’t start wars from a golf resort.

OK, let’s recap and see what we’ve got:

Every day, in one way or another, the Trump administration floats out some conspiracy theory or baseless allegation to deflect attention from the fact that it’s being investigated by the FBI for colluding with the Russian government to manipulate the 2016 election. Mostly, they just blame Obama.

Shooting 60 attack missiles at a foreign country that did nothing to threaten America is a damn fine way to get the media to stop writing about your Russian connections, especially if the country you’re invading is a Russian ally and you’ve tipped off the Russians in advance to get the hell out, then crafted your attack to cause as little damage as possible.

“See, there’s no Russian collusion. I just bombed Syria.”

Today it comes out that Trump spilled the beans to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Putin passed it on to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad so that everyone could evacuate the target and we bombed the equivalent of a vacant lot. It has also been reported that Assad decided to raise the stakes today by launching more gas attacks on civilians.

"I'll see your puny rocket display and raise you a few dozen canisters of deadly chlorine gas." 

Film at 11.

I had originally suggested -- assuming that we actually had a good reason to bomb Syria -- that we should at least have done it the right way. The problems started when the media found out we took this action without advising Congress or our own State Department, but did notify Russia. It made me wonder who else was not told? The UN? Our allies? Israel? I guess that will all come out in time.

Today, that seems like a moot point anyway. Based on new information, there was no good reason to do what we did. The attack on a few acres of unoccupied concrete was a $70 million light show launched by Trump to divert attention from his Russia problem while showing the world he's tougher than Barack Obama.

I mean, look who benefits from the event. Trump is getting rave reviews from his supporters for being a manly man and for shooting across the Obama red line. This may help his 34% approval rating bigly. He also got those "media dogs" to chase another stick not related to the Russia probe.

Russia benefits because we supposedly “retaliated” against one of their allies which gives them more ammunition to back the Assad regime while denying any involvement with Trump. It’s worth noting, too, that after the attack, Russian intelligence wasted no time sending out its fake news bots to say the gas attack on Syrian civilians had been a hoax.

And how does America benefit? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone not named Trump?

Just as I suspected. To borrow from Shakespeare, this attack was full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It was another example of Trump trying to do something for all the wrong reasons and even then not knowing how to do it right.

And look...there's my opinion. It showed up right on time.