Game On in Iraq: Iranian Quds and Militias Suffer a, um, Setback

That. Question. Must. Be. Rhetorical. Since. You. Don't. Like. Facts. That. Contradict. Your. Imagination.

Gas collected from your grandmother's casket?

Also:

Eleven US Troops Were Injured in Jan. 8 Iran Missile Strike

So, something else they lied about.

Well, if they'd disclosed that and then conducted a massive retaliatory attack on Iran, you'd have been all over that like a fat boy on a cupcake, so with you it's always going to be the Kobayashi Maru as far as America goes. Be grateful that Trump showed some restraint, learn when to STFU, and let people smarter than you do their jobs.

Or, they could have disclosed it and showed restraint.

Given your recent posting - including the rehash about Saddam's WMD's (!) your assertions about "people smarter than you" get a big LOL.

The time for trump to show restraint would have been when he was thinking about assassinating their second in command for no reason. You need to STFU when it is your guy who was off the hook.

there were no apparent injuries at the time. You know, like broken bones, bleeding, missing limbs, shit like that. Sometimes it's hard to determine if somebody just "got their bell rung" or there is more to it head trauma-wise. But why risk it? You might as well have them expertly evaluated at a location with better medical facilities.

well Rick the military has always been very tight-lipped about releasing information about their people - no matter who is HMIC whether Trump, Obama, Clinton, Bush, etc etc.

Lets see a couple of soldiers were dizzy and had concussions compared to what happened to the people who were actually hit by trump's assassination. In the end these guys should not have even had to be there and would not have had these missile fired on them if it was not for trump's murderous assassination.

You are not smarter than Rick.

Sorry but that's the way the cookie crumbles as they say.

Trump did not show restraint, he was the aggressor. You can't "show restraint" when you launch a first strike by definition.

Some would argue that the first strikes were months ago, when Iran started attacking tankers and Saudi Arabia, shooting down our drones, and finally fomenting an attack on our embassy. But none of that counts in your TDS world. Ya can't fix stupid.

Or decades ago when you engineered a coup in their country?

Or centuries ago when we, as your predecessors launched a series of crusades?

How many people did they kill boarding tankers? How're the Saudis handling the situation in Yemen?

Mm hmm. All of which acknowledges Trump didn't 'start it.'

You miss my point.

We can take this back centuries and get nowhere closer to solving anything.

The current exchange was a diplomatic debacle based on Trump's failure to understand politics except as a real estate deal. He couldn't see the profit in the deal (and hated that Obama had negotiated it) and ruined something which should have been an important step towards normalised relations.

After that you've had the usual dismal tit for tat nonsense, but Iran's actions have been measured, proportionate and (most importantly) non lethal. Killing Soleimani was another matter entirely. It was reckless and provocative, a child's overreaction with no driving strategy or purpose other than to look like a strong man during impeachment.

It was Iran who showed restraint by responding to a lethal strike with a very carefully and deliberately non lethal response.

You're just unable to see past your assumption of the US being "good guys".

Not at all surprised @Marso does not care about the lives of our troops.

I think that's kind of "reaching" there.

Why?

because nobody (not even Marso, not even Trump, not even Obama, not even Elizabeth Warren) can keep U.S. troops 100 percent safe. There is no "safe" there is only "safer". You can Monday morning quarterback all you want, but a president doesn't exist who can direct military actions and guarantee that they will not endanger US troops and to what degree. Every decision is a crapshoot with many variables and layers. That's just the way shit works in the military and in the real world.

But we aren't talking about military decisions here, we're talking about political ones which impact on the military. When the civilian leadership shows blatant disregard for the military I'd imagine that would cause some sort of blowback.

Civilian leadership comes & goes every four/eight years. The military as an institution & power structure goes on forever and they can weather any storm of poor civilian input/management/leadership that comes their way. A lot of shit happens behind closed doors that 99.9 percent of the U.S. population will never be aware of. Suffice it to say the military will be just fine no matter who is in charge. Most significant changes take forever in the military....any president will be gone by the time most changes are implemented.

Nothing lasts forever or is immune to changes on the world stage. The US military can be damaged, diminished, humiliated in the field or by public figures, even made irrelevant by the political climate, just like any other organisation.

Trump is not an normal POTUS, he's completely reinventing the US on the world stage and doing so from a position of ignorance, surely you see this?

No, you didn't.

damn I better dial 911 - you cut me with your razor sharp wit!

Obama proved this as well as any president in U.S. history.

Well, if a 'position of ignorance' is America first, record low unemployment, record high stock markets month after month, GDP back above 4%, the return of manufacturing jobs that people said could never happen, backing down North Korea and Iran, and so on. My year-end 401K statement showed a six figure net gain in value aside from my own contributions. Give me another Trump term and I'll eventually retire a millionaire. Well, I was going to anyway, but a millionaire plus.

Yup, been a critic of Obama's foreign policy on many occasions.

As for the rest, "America First" seems to mean fucking everyone else over, employment figures are merely following their pre existing trends, record stock market highs are typically indicative of upcoming recession, GDP is a piss poor measure of economic success and you must be jesting if you view North Korea and Iran as successes.

Kim is laughing at Trump and continuing to develop nukes, Trump utterly failed to make a deal or gain concessions despite claiming success whereas Iran was a problem of his making in the first place. The fact we aren't looking at WW3 yet is because they were responsible and mature enough not to overreact to his aggression and his reneging on a deal made (and kept) in good faith.

The man is a monumental fuck up.

Seriously dude. What the FUCK are you smoking, and where can I get some?

Yeah, I wondered about that too but decided not to get into the details for fear of what might emerge on my screen.

Krokodil.