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

Words mean things.

you lie down with dogs - you wake up with fleas!

BTW we couldn't have done it without Brit help - thanks spot!

Indeed.

the left doesn't quite understand just how narrow a window exists to successfully carry out a mission like this without a lot of collateral damage. A lot of things have to fall into place and the shorter that chain is the better the chance a weak link won't fuck it up.

really? Didja get that from a fortune cookie?

I'd also say that it is pretty bad optics for the left to be jumping up and down angry over this. Reminds me of the mistakes the right made back when Bin Laden was taken out. That also happened in an election year. How did that turn out?

2011 was an election year?

Massive protests have been going on for a while now in Iran.

You're right. It was the year before. But it did become an issue during the election when Romney stated that even Jimmy Carter would have made that call. Here was Obama's response.

Not entirely comparable, since everybody on the planet knew who OBL was. This guy? I'll wager that 99% of Americans had no idea of who he was before he got blowed up.

Trump will have to provide considerable evidence that this guy was a direct threat to the US for it to be a significant issue in the campaign. Does he have it? I don't know. And how the Iranians respond to this will also have an impact upon the campaign. It could help or hurt him. It's too early to say.

I haven't seen Democrats this upset since Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Quite true, which would seem to indicate Ol Qasem isn’t as popular as some would make out.

They know who he is now. And Obama's response in that debate was exactly what americans like to hear in that situation. Obama said that he's not going to ask permission when taking out someone like Bin Laden. The two events are totally comparable.

We know that he is responsible for the deaths of american soldiers. Does it really matter if he was planning more?

Yes, in the same way that they know who a voice actor is on a TV series. They don't have videos of planes flying into buildings at his direction on endless loops.

We knew that Yasser Arafat was responsible for a lot of deaths, yet we helped broker a deal with him because he'd agreed to put an end to the killing. The same could be said of the IRA. So yeah, it kind of matters if he was planning more.

I don't have a problem with him being taken out, but the timing does seem a little wonky. He's been responsible for the deaths of American soldiers for years.

Yeah, it totally compares.
Bin Laden was an international state-less fugitive criminal despised by the leadership of his home country, and Soleimani was second man on the totem pole of his whole country, and was a general, spy, pope, and Muslim Big Bird all rolled into one, and was a human fuse hooked to a gasoline truck. Parked next to a row of 10 other gasoline trucks. Parked next to a refinery.

Yep, totally the same thing.

Don't worry everyone, key industries in the stock market are doing very well. No money was harmed during this inevitable police action.

These 7 aerospace and defense stocks are getting a huge boost from Trump's strike on Iran

Source: https://markets.businessinsider.com...an-missile-strike-soleimani-2020-1-1028793817

The 7 Defense and Aerospace corporations are:
General Dynamics
TransDigm Group
Huntington Ingalls Industries
Raytheon
Harris
Lockheed Martin
Northrop Grumman

Yes, children may die, hundreds of thousands of innocent lives displaced, trillions spent (sorry kids, we're going to have to wait on healthcare and climate change. Australia's on fire, but this... this is soooo important), but somehow the U.S. will continue to stand for truth, justice, and the American way, as she always has in the face of trouble abroad.

Ah well, I hope at least someone else is sick about it.

Better the mullahs, eh? Keep the woman covered and the gays dead!

Don't know much about the IRA, but using Arafat to make your point really doesn't help your case . I know of no incident where Arafat attacked America or American people. There was a "rumor" that he was behind Sirhan Sirhan's assasination of Robert Kennedy, but nothing concrete. And even if he did, just because you can point to an incredibly stupid policy decision from 20 years ago does not mean we should repeat it. If someone kills a family member of yours, you don't negotiate in the hopes that "maybe" he'll leave you alone. You take his ass out when you can.

You think the Iranian leadership is maybe thinking the same thing right now?

Iran will never be able to hit trump. Trump will never face consequences for this action. From his point of view this is a safe move that he will never be responsible for. The US people will pay the price for his action, but in a large part his voters are safe from retaliation also. Like most of the trump idiocy someone else will pay the price for their actions which is why they want this to happen, and what they love.

This is what happens when you do not have consequences for voting and leading like assholes. There is no reason to ever think or plan out your actions properly. This is also why CEOs pretty much universally suck ass. They all have their golden parachutes so running companies into the ground never takes away their status as rich people. This is why Trump never had to worry about losing all of his inheritance because someone will always give him more money. This is why little Bush lied to us about Iraq and made that horrible decision, because he is painting pictures on his ranch today and never has to deal with all the deaths and dismembered body parts he caused.

I would say we should strap Barron and the other trump kids to the front of the embassy in Iraq as human shields, but commander Cheeto bone spurs would actually probably agree to that. Instead we should allow Iranian terrorists free access to every trump golf course and property with his name on it and give them free baskets of explosives and maps to every one of his rich guests homes.

The good news is we might avoid random terrorist hits abroad. Unlike the past presidents and war hawks trump is an international property holder. everything he does goes through his properties. His family stays at his properties. His money and bribes flow in through his properties. His supporters stay at his properties. Even the military is forced to stay at his properties. His name is on most of his properties because it is a selling point and ego point for him. We also have to remember Trump is taking full responsibility for these actions as it is well known he did not ask for permission to do them.

Maybe Terrorists do not know, or will not care, but if they do not want to risk direct war with the US by retaliating on US troops they can get back at Trump by hitting his properties directly. From what analysts are claiming Iran will want to strike back hard, but not want to provoke a war with the US. How much thought would they have to put in to his trump's properties abroad? They do not even have to infiltrate the US when they can hit his international properties. Here in the US any local terrorists have so many targets to hit with his name on it. Hitting these targets are going to hammer his fundraising.

We have never had a president so open to terrorism directly. His properties are not secure like US military targets. They cannot be. You have workers and visitors who do not want to be be going through strip searches, luggage searches, and dealing with armed security when they could simply go down the road to the hyatt.

The more I think about this, the more this was a really stupid business move that will effect his fundraising right when he needs his bribes the most. He just stuck his little orange colored dick in a bees nest and fucked it.

What could possibly go wrong?

You clearly don't know much about Arafat and the PLO, either. There were a whole slew of hijackings in the 70s/80s where Americans died that he was involved with.

But I was using "we" in the sense of the larger world. One can easily point to any nation in the world and find that they negotiated peace with individuals who were directly responsible for the murder of their civilians. In many of those cases, there were no prosecutions of leaders of groups responsible for the murder of civilians. The alternative to doing something like that is not merely the kind of over-whelming type of military action which we engaged in during WWII, but also the massive rebuilding effort we undertook in Europe after the war. I cannot think of a single member of any political party in the US who would be willing to commit to such a thing when it comes to a modern conflict. It's simply bomb the shit out of them, throw some money at them once they surrender, and then act surprised when that doesn't solve anything.

Arafat knew how to play the game. Pick your targets carefully, don't kill too many civilians, and you can keep playing. When 9/11 happened, he was willing to push for peace, because he realized that OBL had upended the table. Instead of having to worry about the odd missile strike, or the assassination of a PLO leader, in response to something that the PLO had done, there was going to be a literal shit-storm of overwhelming reaction. Had the US (or Israel) taken this guy out the way we'd disposed of Iranian officials in the past (targeted assassination done quietly, oftentimes on Iranian soil), the Iranians probably would have responded with a strongly worded letter and threats to boost their nuclear program. Now? They've got to respond in some manner.

But I don't think that it'll be a direct military action. Like Arafat, they know how the game is played. So they'll stab at us in a way in which it makes it hard for the US to come in with guns blazing, but gets their point across. Supposedly, the Iranians, like other nations, have been probing our election systems to see how vulnerable they are to hacking. Would they fuck up our elections in such a manner as to throw our country into chaos? I wouldn't rule it out.

Misdirection and everyone knows it. The Middle East has been shaped intentionally and (mostly) otherwise by centuries of outside interference and the major external player for decades has been the US. Iran were, as far as anyone can tell, complying with the IND and it was the US who reneged unilaterally. It was the US who have violated a sovereign nation yet again and it will be the people of Iraq and Iran who will suffer most in the instability which will follow.

No amount of bombs are going to stop radical Muslims committing abuses, just the opposite. This will yet again motivate militias and terrorist groups, not to mention alienate and radicalise civilians who will rightly resent living in a war zone so the US can yet again flex it's muscles overseas.

You are a bad actor in the region. You always have been and for all their faults in this case it was Iran who tried to act in good faith, not you guys.

Which is an unforgivable stain on our honour and reputation.

Huh huh!
Wars are cheap!
Iraq only cost a human crewed Mars ship, single payer healthcare, an end to homelessness, and a coast to coast solar bullet train!
So cheap!
Wheee!