Page 28 - The Message News Today

Previous comments he had made, i would say that what hes faced with here is a humanitarian crisis and had to send a message that no longer are we going to lead from the back when it comes to chemical weapons and lead from assad. talk about north korea, i think kim jung-un was sent a message that president trump is not to be trifled with a message. the u.s. will go it alone and get it done themselves amch. >> it is, though, a change in policy essentially from what donald trump talked about during...

Theres a longer term engagement, or if they are issues where we have to do something about assad directly, then yes we have to go to congress. but, yes, the president was fully within his bounds to do so. >> that seems to be the case, but we really dent kne. we dont know how the russians will react. we dont know how their puppet assad will react. we dont know once again if the presidents going avail himself of a very easy tool to say when they are people fleeing this regime, we will welcome them...

Experience, how effective are they? >> it depends, anderson. it has to do with the mission, the conduct of the mission analysis, the enemy youre going against and what you want to do from the standpoint of a psychological message. if it meets the requirement of what the president, the commander in chief and civilian authorities wants the military to do they can be at times effective. there have been other times as well where they have not been effecti effective. it can be devastating if used app...

Crater runways. they hit the areas they could. they have done a significant amount of damage. i think the general makes a key point. when you do these strikes you dont know what the effect will be. each strike is different. some times they work. some times they dont. you have to determine how much force youre going to use, when youre going to strike, how symbolic is the target and is the message going to get through? we wont know until he does something or does not do something. >> go ahead. >> ...

Battlefield. >> yeah, exactly. and again, i would have been right where senator mccain was earlier in your show, three years ago, four years ago where everything was more malleable. and look, anderson, forget about the russians being there to fight isis as candidate trump said. theyre there to buck up their clients state. and now we need them to keep their client on-side while we go do some other stuff. and thats probably the topic for secretary tillerson in moskow. >> do you think theres also a...

Is in syria. >> you really dont know. >> no, i dont. because on monday it was one thing, and now it seems to be another. we need to understand these goals. president trump owes that to the american people. we need to understand what exactly hes trying to achieve especially with any further military action. fou, look, we can say that the message said by these 59 tomahawks was dont use chemical weapons. thats fine. but what comes next has to have an intention of purpose. and frankly, we owe that t...

The runway. i didnt do this or it did do that. what i would tell you is i know how the plans with made in the pentagon. what they wanted to hit they hit. what they didnt hit they didnt want to hit. there were reasons for all of these things. we cant get in the minds of planners or commanders in chief. i would suggest there is more rational than what we are reporting on the news and what we as commentators are right now. >> what do you see when you see this strike? >> i think it was a good ball l...

4:30 thursday. and within three hours on thursday, last night, 8:40 east coast time or a little bit before that, the tomahawks are launched and the president is briefed on the impact of the strike just a short time later. so really a 48-hour planning cycle, start to finish, moving very rapidly through this. limited stiek, yes. but it was the message that the white house chose to send that youve been talking about all night, the message to assad. basically dont do this again. you do it again, wel...

Son kushner. it appears the america-first group is seeing some sway. >> i will have that responsibility and carry it very proudly. >> reporter: its an abrupt changing tone from the president on day one, hammering this message. >> from this day forward its going to be only america first, america first. >> reporter: but trump has grown frusitated with infighting among top aides, and his inability to make more progress on his domestic agenda. the relationship between bannon and kushner has become m...

. this time last night two tomahawk missiles. t in choosing it he joined a long list of commanders and chief to punish an adversary or to send a message. we have more now. >> reporter: five years before the 2003 war against a u.s. lead coalition saddam husseins iraq was, a punitive four-day campaign ordered by bill clinton following iraqs to comply with u.n. resolutions.