Airstrikes on Syria a political move

Re Airstrikes ratchet up U.S.-Russian tensions, April 8 The U.S. attack on Syria was clearly a political move by Trump to shore up his flagging and chaotic presidency. It had nothing to do with morality or strategic objectives.

Obviously, if Trump cared about the well-being of Syrians, he would’ve been allowing thousands of refugees into the United States. But as we all know, he has barred them.

With the chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime, Trump saw an opportunity to look presidential, show the visiting Chinese president who’s the boss and to prove to skeptics that he’s not Putin’s poodle. It was a brilliant political stroke that seems to have paid off for him temporarily.

Of course nothing will change in Syria, the country is still a disgusting morass of violence. And now of course Trump has embarrassed the Russians, who are hardly innocents in this deadly violence, but a country that is needed if a solution can be found. Now Russia will feel even more emboldened to support the Assad regime and the cycle of violence will continue unabated.

There are no easy answers to the Syrian mess, all civil wars come to an end eventually, but this one seems a long way off. Clearly, no easy solutions here.

It’s interesting that we commemorate the 100-year anniversary of Vimy Ridge where for many, Canada become a nation. As the Star notes, obviously there is some mythology associated with this, but clearly this was a defining moment in Canadian history. Wasn’t this war supposed to be the war that ended all wars and chemical weapons were banned? This is also the 101-year anniver- sary of Sykes-Picot, when the British and the French carved up the Middle East, which has had long standing, nasty and unending consequences. Andrew van Velzen, Toronto I did not support most of Donald Trump’s policies that contain little of principle, equity and care and which were racist. But I give President Trump two thumbs up for taking necessary action on Syria for using chemical weapons to kill innocent civilians, especially. babies and children. He proved that Barack Obama’s foreign policy was a disaster and Trump was right.

In dealing with Bashar Assad’s dictatorship as well as Vladimir Putin’s support for Assad we must be confident and act quickly. We have seen that Obama’s policy based on negotiation and peace talk was useless, instead it allowed Assad and Putin to gain more power and employ more aggressive killing of Syrian civilians.

Good job Mr. Trump! Thuan Truong, Toronto