{"id":20836,"date":"2017-04-07T01:56:19","date_gmt":"2017-04-07T01:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20836"},"modified":"2017-04-07T01:56:19","modified_gmt":"2017-04-07T01:56:19","slug":"heres-a-thought-go-after-assads-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20836","title":{"rendered":"Here&#8217;s a thought: Go after Assad&#8217;s house"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/BBzv9Xs.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-20837\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/BBzv9Xs-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/BBzv9Xs-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/BBzv9Xs.jpg 728w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>U.S. military forces tonight launched a few dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syrian military targets.<\/p>\n<p>Donald Trump ordered the strikes in retaliation for Syrian government forces&#8217; use of chemical weapons on civilians, killing dozens of them, including children.<\/p>\n<p>It was a reprehensible act. The thought occurs to me: The strikes hit military targets, but why not zero in on where the dictator, Bashar al-Assad, hangs his hat?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not unprecedented. I recall when the Persian Gulf War started in late 1990. The first weapon was a Tomahawk cruise missile launched from the USS Wisconsin, the World War II-era battleship that had been brought back into active duty. The ship&#8217;s target? Saddam Hussein&#8217;s palace in Baghdad!<\/p>\n<p>Saddam commanded the Iraqi military that had invaded Kuwait. He served two roles in Iraq: head of state and the supreme commander of the Iraqi military. President George H.W. Bush, thus, considered Saddam to be a military target.<\/p>\n<p>Assad is just as ham-handed a dictator as Saddam Hussein had become. He also has a tight rein on his military forces. Therefore, he is a military &#8212; as well as a political &#8212; figure.<\/p>\n<p>We should hit Syrian military targets. What the Syrian government has done is reprehensible in the extreme.<\/p>\n<p>It does nothing, though, without the approval of the dictator who is in charge.<\/p>\n<p>Make the dictator a target, too.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. military forces tonight launched a few dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syrian military targets. Donald Trump ordered the strikes in retaliation for Syrian government forces&#8217; use of chemical weapons on civilians, killing dozens of them, including children. It was a reprehensible act. The thought occurs to me: The strikes hit military targets, but why &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20836\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Here&#8217;s a thought: Go after Assad&#8217;s house<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,12],"tags":[556,1424,1892,2330,3555,4069],"class_list":["post-20836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","category-military-news","tag-bashar-al-assad","tag-donald-trump","tag-george-hw-bush","tag-iraq","tag-persian-gulf-war","tag-saddam-hussein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20838,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20836\/revisions\/20838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}