Just talking TACTICS, not policy: Since when did "democracy" mean telling adversaries your plans?

[JHB]

12. To the extent that citizens have a right to know what they're in for, always.

I can't think of anyone who's asking for an exact list of targets and launch windows. TACTICS are a matter for whenever, if ever, missiles are launched.

So let's talk about neither TACTICS nor policy, but strategy. What's the actual goal, militarily?
What are we trying to accomplish? Will the planned force level accomplish that?
If not, then what? Call it off? Increase the force level?
Even then: What if two months later there's another gas attack? Even if we're 100% sure it was by Assad, do we send another "message"? If he's thumbing his nose at us we might need to send a "stronger message"! What will that entail?

And those questions force us back to policy, politics, and informing the public. The Darth & Chim-Chim Show drove the government's ability to say "just trust on this" so deep into the dirt that even 5 years and a 2-term Democratic president later it still isn't close to peeking above ground level. Particularly when what we're being asked to trust is that it will be quick and cheap (at least for us).
Doubly particular when the arguments are thick with "have to do something" and "send a message" and other nebulous talking head blather.

If you want to send a message about how intolerable it is to use poisoned gas, the most effective way of doing that is to render him incapable of using it again, either by destroying gas stockpiles or his armed forces, or both. And since the forces needed to do that are substantially more than anything that's being talked about, it's a realy important question of how effective some lesser measure will really be. Blowing up some of his arms depots could actually encourage him to use more gas because conventional forces he might have used in their place were turned into scrap metal and meat gobbets. Perverse side-effects like that have been known to happen in war.

"Loose lips sinks ships" was a byword in WW2 because they explained to people the possible consequences of seemingly minor chit-chat, and it was pretty easy to follow the connections. It's not exactly applicable to the question of "what are we being dragged into here?"