Daily Kos goes into full “Conspiracy Theory Mode” after attacks on Syria.

I rather can’t believe how much Daily Kos is sounding like Sputnik these days: “FEEBLE US ATTACK DOES NOTHING!”  .  It’s the same everywhere:

Meh, just a couple people dead (insert-lowest-cited-figure-from-any-source).

Just a old planes destroyed (insert-lowest-cited-figure-from-any-source).

Hit a couple rocks, you know, nothing.

They packed up everything and moved!

False Flag.

Wag The Dog.

Fake Attack.

Seriously, is this the path we’re going to walk with this one?

Syria now says 15 died. There are lists of names. Locals were reporting heavy ambulance traffic all night. But hey, let’s just pretend it was four because that’s the lowest number anyone’s put out, right?

The US estimate for planes destroyed is nearly 20, but of course, let’s only listen to Russia’s statement of six, because they’re totally trustworthy and it’s totally not in their interest to pretend that damage was less than it was.  And even if it was just six, planes are a hell of a lot more expensive than tomahawks. And this laughable concept that you just pick up and move a whole airbase overnight. Yeah, totally. Fixed SAM sites. Huge fuel tanks. Major ammo depots. Entire warehouses. Just drove off with it, right?

Shayrat is one of the biggest airbases in Syria, and has been one of the main focuses of expansion in recent years. It’s far enough into regime territory to keep it out of risk, but close enough to attack targets in the Homs, Hama, Palmyra, Dumayr, and other areas.  It’s the home of the 7th MiG-25, MiG-23 and MiG-29, the 677th Su-22 and the 685th Su-22 squadrons, a Su-25, 8 K52 helicopters and 4 Mi-27s. Home of the 22nd brigade. Also a SAM site. It’s not just some little bulldozed runway out in the middle of the desert.

What exactly do you think those huge secondary explosions reported all night were if not ammunition depots? What exactly do you think is those giant columns of smoke visible in the daytime footage were if not jet fuel?  What do you think it was that left char on the front of most of the hangars if they were empty?  Unlike Hollywood, high explosives don’t do their damage with lingering columns of flame, they do it with shockwaves; char comes from things burning.  

But meh, wag the dog, right?  

No no, the military is lying about what they hit, and they not only faked their own images, but they got private satellite companies to fake theirs too! Because it’s that good of a False Flag!  Because that’s totally not CT. And you know what? All of the other countries who’ve been weighing in on the attack, they’ve all been conned too!  Either that, or they’re in on the game!  Wink wink, nudge nudge. But only us clever people over here on DK know the truth of the false flag attack!

I personally find it disgusting to see people pretend that war and killing is “fake” just because they don’t like Trump. Sorry, but this isn’t some fake game he’s playing, it’s the real thing.  People really did die.  Russia really did cut off the very deescalation line that was used to warn them in response to this (yes). Russia really is planning to up their actions in defense of Assad in response to this, and US air support against Daesh just got a lot more complicated.  There are real consequences to this.

(And just to close off with the common canard here? Yes, there was damage to the runways, just not enough to shut them all down. Cruise missiles really aren’t a good way to take out runways)

Ed: To people insisting in the comments that nobody here is calling this a “false flag” or “wag the dog” or anything of that nature… have you been reading the same site I have?  

* Wag the dog in diaries

* Wag the dog in comments

The false flag pushers often go even further, suggesting that the gas attack too was orchestrated in conjunction in order to give Trump an excuse to bomb some rubble. Another word you’ll often find in regard to either the “this was arranged to bomb sand” or the “this and the gas attack were arranged” crowd is “staged” — example of the former here, example of the latter here. Tons more where they came from.

This wasn’t written out of the blue. It was written because I got tired of all of the conspiracy theorizing.

Ed: New video of the damage: