U.S. Iran Conflict

[elengil]

The Young Turks get a little loud and shouty for me at times but these two were good ones to watch.

[RoseMorninStar]

[Sunsilver]

So, I find it quite interesting that no one on this board has said anything about Qasem Soleimani's assassination by the U.S. military.

Many liberal news outlets are criticizing Trump, saying he didn't think this through thoroughly enough, and of course, FB is full of memes saying it was done to distract people from Trump's impeachment.

But people on this board have been strangely silent.

I haven't shared anything about it on FB, because I know something like this could not be done without deep intelligence and planning by the military. This wasn't a decision Trump made on his own, though he obviously knew about it and gave the okay.

No one criticized the government over the killing of Bin Laden, and some sources I've read say this man was just as evil. He may have worn a uniform, but he was an evil man: https://www.arabnews.com/node/1607991?f ... U.facebook

Yes, Trump deserves to be castigated for saying he'd target Iranian cultural sites, but I think Soleimani's assassination may be something that had to be done to protect the lives of U.S. soldiers and their allies.

Who here on this board feels they understand the Iran/Iraq politics well enough to comment?

I think that's another reason no one has mentioned it. It's not a simple situation!

[elengil]

I did post a couple of videos discussing it down below, but wasn't really sure what to add to the discussion myself. I was just waiting to see what was going to happen...

I might have been convinced that this was for the greater good of the US if anything Trump did was for the greater good, but honestly I just feel this is his way of either starting a war to up his popularity, or to bump impeachment from the news headlines. Honestly, I don't think anything he does is done thoughtfully with a view to the future repercussions and not just whatever he thinks will help him in the moment.

I don't, for one second, believe that we as a country, or our troops or citizens overseas, are safer now. On the contrary, I feel we are far more likely to be targeted.

No one criticized the government over the killing of Bin Laden

I feel that is a different thing entirely in that the entire government was agreed on that objective. Bin Laden was not a state military leader. His death was not like losing a general where you simply promote another to that position, as you do in a state military body. There were layers of command that can simply continue on doing whatever it was that was so "imminent" - unlike a non-state militia or terrorist organization where the loss of a single point might be overwhelmingly disruptive.

There may not be a moral difference, I grant you. But at least we were actively (if not "declared") at war with Bin Laden and his group. We are not actively at war with Iran! Why are we targeting their military members? If we felt Iran was a threat to the US, we should have maybe stayed in the agreement that prevented them from developing nukes!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I know something like this could not be done without deep intelligence and planning by the military. This wasn't a decision Trump made on his own, though he obviously knew about it and gave the okay.

As I understand it, military leaders prepared a range of options to provide to Trump and the assassination of Soleimani was presented as the most extreme choice, in order to make the other options seem more reasonable. That is apparently a common tool that military leaders use, and no one ever expects a president to chose that option. They were therefore shocked and dismayed that Trump did choose that option but had no choice but to go through with it once he did so.

There is no comparison between the assassination of Soleimani and the killing of Bin Laden because the latter was not a representative of any government. The most recent similar example to the assassination of Soleimani was the assassination of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in 1943. The difference, of course, was that we are actually at war with Japan at the time.

As bad a person as Soleimani might have been, there is no evidence that he actually was involved in planning any imminent attacks on the U.S. The United States is more in danger as a result of this action then we would have been had it not been taken.

ETA: Here is an article regarding what I was talking about that isn't behind a paywall: Pentagon Officials Reportedly “Stunned” by Trump’s Decision to Kill Soleimani

[Sunsilver]

Okay, doing my homework. Soleimani was the head of Iran's Quds Force, which is similar to the C.I.A.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quds_Force He was not just a regular army General.

He was designated as a terrorist by the United States[25] and by the European Union.[26] The entity he led, the Quds Force, is part of the IRGC (Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps), which is considered a terrorist organization by Canada,[27] Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,[28] and the United States.[29][30]

Read that again. Canada considers Quds a terrorist organization. The mission of Quds is "liberating supposedly "Muslim land", especially al-Quds, from which it takes its name-- "Jerusalem Force," in English.[14]" In other words, it believes Jerusalem (and Israel) should belong to the Muslims.

It was responsible for the deaths of 20% of the American troops killed during combat in Iraq:

According to Filkins and American General Stanley A. McChrystal, it was the Quds Force that "flooded" Iraq with "explosively formed projectiles" which fire a molten copper slug able to penetrate armor, and which accounted for "nearly 20%" of American combat deaths in Iraq (i.e. hundreds of soldiers).[7]

I'm sure if I dug deeper, I could find more to support the assassination. Let me repeat: this was NOT something Trump decided on his own! High level military people were involved in deciding and planning this out.

Edit: cross-posted with Voronwë. And I don't have time to go back and edit, in light of his comments.

[elengil]

Read that again. Canada considers Quds a terrorist organization.

If Honduras considered the CIA a terrorist organization, would that give them free reign to assassinate its leaders?

There has to be some level of accountability.

It was responsible for the deaths of 20% of the American troops killed during combat in Iraq

A "war" with dubious foundation against another sovereign nation that did not attack us. Global support aside, I still don't see any justification for what we did and can't fault the other side for fighting back. I'll say 100% of American troops killed in Iraq were the responsibility of the US.

And pretty sure the threat of blowing up cultural sites puts us pretty squarely in the "terrorist" group.

[Maria]

Assassination is dishonorable.
If we do that, we are no longer the good guys.
I guess we passed that mark a long time ago, though.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Sunsilver]

Assassination is dishonorable.
If we do that, we are no longer the good guys.
I guess we passed that mark a long time ago, though.

Yep, they crossed the line on that.

https://edition.cnn.com/2002/LAW/11/04/ ... on.policy/

They probably used this to justify it:

White House and CIA lawyers believe that the intelligence "finding" is constitutional because the ban on political assassination does not apply to wartime. They also contend that the prohibition does not preclude the United States taking action against terrorists.

Anyway, as someone who's ex-military, I am very glad you weighed in on this, Maria. I've been chatting with someone whose husband is currently deployed, and her viewpoint is much different. She believes the town where she lives is even in danger, because they are right on top of a major oil supply line, which could be targeted if the Iraquis want to take this to the next level.

She thinks we are on the verge of WWIII, and depending on what happens in the next few weeks, she could be right.

[Maria]

Considering that the start of WW1 is considered to be assassination of Duke Ferdinand somebody or other *quick google* "Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria", this could be similarly inflammatory.

Stupid humans.

[Sunsilver]

Yup.

[River]

I find it rather telling that the reaction to the droning of Soleimani from pretty much all of our allies, including Israel, has been "WTF guys? WT actual F?" I am also leery of most of the claims regarding Iran that have mushroomed in the past four or five days. It reminds me of all the shifting and shifty propaganda used to justify the Iraq invasion in 2003. There are lots of ways to deal with an imminent threat. Dropping a bomb via drone on a government official on a diplomatic mission in another sovereign nation's territory is one of the more crass methods. There's a lot of collateral damage that comes with drones. In this case, Iraqis were killed. And, as far as I can tell, all we've done is further destabilize an incredibly complicated and unstable situation. I don't think this assassination has made anyone safer in the short term and I doubt it will in the long term.

Trump's threat to blow up Iranian cultural sites is a war crime. The US military is legally obligated to ignore such an order.

Maria, that crossed my mind. The Franz Ferdinand assassination was effectively an act of terrorism perpetrated by young Yugoslav nationalists who wanted the Austro-Hungarians out of their territory. Or it was a brave act of resistance by young Yugoslav nationalists who wanted the Austro-Hungarians out of their territory. Germany responded to this attack on its ally by invading Belgium. When the shooting finally stopped, the Austro-Hungarian Empire no longer existed, Germany ended up under crippling economic sanctions, Yugoslavia had new borders, and everyone started fighting again about 20 years later after raising up a fresh crop of cannon fodder.

This situation is more fraught as the killing was government-sanctioned.

[RoseMorninStar]

So, I find it quite interesting that no one on this board has said anything about Qasem Soleimani's assassination by the U.S. military.

I am so sick of Trump. I do not like impulsivity of any sort and he is petty impulsivity personified. Those who have the power to put a stop to his idiocy refuse to do their job. It frightens the crap out of me but there is not a damn thing we can do and that is frightening. I do not like to give up hope but arguing with those who cannot see him for the disaster that he is does no good. So, where does that leave us?

Assassination is dishonorable.
If we do that, we are no longer the good guys.
I guess we passed that mark a long time ago, though.

[Inanna]

Iran fires missiles on two US bases in Iraq.

[River]

I heard there were strikes on the radio. Earlier today I heard we were promised a proportionate response. I'm wondering how many of our troops is, in the mind of the Iranian government, worth one of their generals.

[Cerin]

If an embassy is considered the same as sovereign soil, then the attack on our embassy was an act of war. If this terrorist/general was behind that attack, he made himself a legitimate target. If he was, as they are saying, behind many acts of aggression against our troops, that is again a legitimate reason to target him. If he was planning attacks on Americans in the region, that is again a legitimate reason to target him.

Pres. 'it turns out I'm really good at killing people' Obama personally targeted many, many people for killing by drone. No one seems to have considered that a problem.

Should Iran just be allowed to continue getting away with acts of aggression against the U.S. with no fear of retaliation? I don't think so.

[elengil]

If an embassy is considered the same as sovereign soil, then the attack on our embassy was an act of war.

Or an act of retaliation for the act of war we already committed.

Pres. 'it turns out I'm really good at killing people' Obama personally targeted many, many people for killing by drone. No one seems to have considered that a problem.

I am unaware of Obama using drones to target anyone from a nation we were not in a defacto state of war with.

[Inanna]

Obama did in Yemen - the ISIS recruiting religious leader (if memory serves me right).

The difference is that they were not that country’s *OFFICIALS*. And that makes all the difference.

[yovargas]

Pres. 'it turns out I'm really good at killing people' Obama personally targeted many, many people for killing by drone. No one seems to have considered that a problem.

Correction - tons of people considered that a problem and said so loudly at the time.