What Did the Strikes on Syria Accomplish?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/opinion/syria-bombing.html

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To the Editor:

“ Talk of ‘Mission Accomplished!’ But Mission in Syria Is Unclear” (news analysis, front page, April 15):

If President Trump’s stated message is “Mission Accomplished,” his unstated message is: The monster Bashar al-Assad is free to kill as many if not all of his citizens as long as he does not use chemical weapons.

By not destroying Mr. Assad’s conventional, formidable war machine, Mr. Trump is giving the green light for the civil war to continue, with the Russians and Iranians given an O.K. to continue supporting Mr. Assad as well. “Mission Accomplished”? Really?

ED RABEL, ALUM CREEK, W.VA.

The writer is a former Pentagon correspondent for NBC News (1993-97).

To the Editor:

Re “Lesson Learned the Hard Way: Assad Can Still Gas His People” (front page, April 15):

There is virtually no evidence that massive bombing campaigns — in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, for example — changed behavior or deterred conduct. Yet leaders like President Trump continue to use the method. It allows such leaders to bloviate and claim action, while unintended negative consequences often occur and bad conduct is not changed.

President Barack Obama was derided for choosing to negotiate a deal for the removal of chemical weapons from Syria instead of bombing, yet that deal removed hundreds of weapons from Syria and no such weapons were used for at least three years. In contrast, a year after Mr. Trump responded to an apparent chemical weapons attack with a missile attack, apparently Syria did it again.

Mr. Trump’s response did no good the first time, nor did he learn anything after its failure. That is the kind of “stupid” response that Mr. Obama tried to avoid.

JOHN E. COLBERT, PARIS

To the Editor:

An inspection team was arriving on Saturday to determine if and what chemicals were used during the attack on Douma, Syria, and if it was indisputably a government attack. Why not let the inspection take place first? The urgency with which Britain, France and the United States bombed and destroyed Syrian chemical weapons facilities without first ascertaining beyond doubt who the culprits were is both illegal according to international law and alarming.

What was the hurry since inspectors were poised to do their work?

ANNA ARAGNO, NEW YORK

To the Editor:

Vice President Mike Pence says it was morally right to bomb Syria. It would have been even more morally right to allow orphaned Syrian children to enter the United States as refugees.

BARRY M. DANKPALM DESERT, CALIF.