A Strange Missile Attack
Published at 22:30 on 9 April 2017
First, yes, Trump indeed told Russia about it first. I mention that not because there’s been any shortage of such mentions, but that they have, so far as I have been able to tell, mostly been one liberal blog citing another. My link is to a Time magazine article that quotes a Russian official by name confirming the notice.
Second, the runways were left alone. Add that to the point above, and it’s no surprise that that planes (which Russia and Russia’s ally Syria were able to move to a safe place thanks to the deliberate warning) used the (still intact) runways to launch sorties from.
Before closing I’ll point out that there is a bit of truth that came out from the White House, namely, that attacking the runways with missiles wouldn’t have accomplished much. No, it wouldn’t have. But that’s sort of beside the point I’m making, which was that a deliberately symbolic attack, with only limited military significance, was made. In other words, it was for show.