impeding that, that is the deal, okay, that he wouldn t do that anymore. that it would be more difficult. it might even open fire on the troops if they found not. certainly, assad won t be happy that the u.s. is bombing his airfields. conceivably, that could happen. certainly, anything is conceivable. i can t imagine that assad bashar al- is going to escalate against the united states. bill: i would say it is a gamble. if there military action does launch, russian planes are ther there, too. aren t russian planes there? it s not like russian planes is pressure on the ground. by the way, as my friend should know, there s a lot more than 1,000 soldiers in syria. the point i m trying to make, it is already bad enough. there are six different armies and ten terrorist organizations in the middle of this.
hope the rest of the council is finally willing to do the same. bill: joining us now from washington, christopher harmer. and from boston, fox news military analyst, colonel david hunt, author of the new book without mercy. colonel hunt, what you think is going to happen here? what i think is going to happen, the secretary of defense will meet this weekend, talk to the president, and ask or tell him, two options, strategic or attacking. one is wiped the entire air force off the map. if we are sure that assad did this, or a smaller tactical strike, just take out an airfield, airfields are a couple planes. it sounds to me that we aren t laying the groundwork from the ambassador, as you just showed, and from rex tillerson, and from the president, to do something for you to the issue is going to be, we have u.s. forces on the ground. if we do this against assad,
seeing it and it doesn t get any worse than that. i have that flexibility. it is very, very possible, and i will tell you it has already happened, that my attitude toward syria and assad has changed very much. that from the president in the rose garden with their jordanian king. shortly after a reporter asked the president, does this mean that this has crossed a line? remember, back in 2013, president obama said that a syrian criminal, chemical strike crossed a line. the united states acted with diplomacy. the president was asked, did this action crossed the red line? this is what he said. had crossed a lot of lines for me. when you kill innocent children, innocent babies, babies, little
this will heighten it. that has to be a consideration. bill: mr. harmer, do you see it that way? i don t see any heightened risk. they are already in country and fighting. the people that they are fighting against are overwhelmingly isis and al qaeda. they are not the targets of this potential strike. the targets of this is striker the ability of the assad regime to develop chemical weapons. in a relatively short. backup time, we could destroy the entirety of the syrian air force. prior to the war, they were fairly big. after six years of civil war, it has been ruined. coming from an infantry background, i am synthetic to the man on the ground. i don t want to place them at further risk. i don t see that a strike against the syrian air force depletes the forces bill: the colonel s point is this. if assad is allowing transit, for example, of u.s. forces from iraq into his country, not
announcer: the o reilly factor, the number one cable news show for 16 years and counting. bill: thanks for staying with us. i am bill o reilly. and the impact segment tonight, where there be a war in syria? as you know come the time and assad, who runs the country, fighting a civil war to keep power aided by russia. this week, assad used poison gas to kill men, women, and children, at least 86 people have died. that prompted this from the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. when the united nations consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action. for the sake of the victims, i