We seemed to have given up the element of surprise.
Rushing to get set up for the cover of darkness.(no moon)
No room for pretenses these days,, Syria is the Normandy of its day, fake C130s or not..
History is a cruel taskmaster.
Sadly, those in control seemed hell-bent to take it to a new level.
And if I recall, Syria has some fairly robust air defenses, so announcing yourself in advance has some drawbacks.
I don’t doubt our ability to go in unmolested and blow things up. But undetected? .. especially when we are right now putting forces in the Mediterranean? Look at a map. We have to send airplanes, UAVs and cruise missiles across Lebanon and Syrian coastline where they can be detected. As soon as that happens, the Syrians scramble their assets and relocate them somewhere in the desert. We do some damage and distract them for a few days. Big deal.