The US just assassinated...

Annachie wrote:

gcomeau wrote:
Well I for one would like to hear more from our resident expert on Iranian Affairs.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/politics ... index.html

Trump got his reaction. Now I'm sure we're all confident this administration had a sober and well thought out strategic response to this all carefully planned and ready to execute that *doesn't * send us down the path to the next war in the middle east.... right?

Well I'm confident that the Pentagon does.

Hopefully they've learned their lesson about offering Trump options.

Offered options or not, this is going to come down to whether there are any adults left who can sit on Trump. He's going to be in full "We need to be tough! I'm tough! Show them we're tough! Fire and fury!" mode.

The entire thing was dumb. I would feel better if I thought that gang could organize a game of marbles on a playground without adult supervision, let alone manage a war...

Don

-

Aaaaaand apparently Iran is showing how annoyed it is by attacking the US Army in Iraq.
Using a missile bombardment, no less.
According the the last news update, two bases holding American forces have been hit by at least a dozen missiles (total, not each...)

Whelp, this is gonna escalate...

Honor would have used the armed drone to put a missile into the four quadrants around the vehicle to prove that she could. Then offered peace terms.

Daryl wrote:Honor would have used the armed drone to put a missile into the four quadrants around the vehicle to prove that she could. Then offered peace terms.

With all respect to RFC, but real warfare is a bit different.

Especially when targeting a target in city. Theoretically-friendly city, filled with civilian Iraq.

I don't really think we have a substantative disagreement here. The assassination was dumb. The consequences are real. However we talk about it, Congress needs to step up to the plate and resume its constitutionally mandated role in deciding when war is to be waged.

Don

-

n7axw wrote:I don't really think we have a substantative disagreement here. The assassination was dumb. The consequences are real. However we talk about it, Congress needs to step up to the plate and resume its constitutionally mandated role in deciding when war is to be waged.

Don

-

Sulinami had commanded and enabled a terrorism campaign that was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of US soldiers and the maiming or cripling of thousands more. He is also responsible for thousands of deaths in the Lebanese civil war as well as attacks on Israelis. I have no doubt that he was present in Iraq to incite and orchestrate more terrorism and perhaps even a coup or civil war. He needed killing. Not killing him for so many years was immoral. The malignant morons who presume that they are demonstrating some type of enlightened, superior morality by lambasting President Trump for exterminating this vermin are profoundly evil. Honor Harrington would have beaten him to death.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

n7axw wrote:I don't really think we have a substantative disagreement here. The assassination was dumb. The consequences are real. However we talk about it, Congress needs to step up to the plate and resume its constitutionally mandated role in deciding when war is to be waged.

Don

-

Sulinami had commanded and enabled a terrorism campaign that was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of US soldiers and the maiming or cripling of thousands more. He is also responsible for thousands of deaths in the Lebanese civil war as well as attacks on Israelis. I have no doubt that he was present in Iraq to incite and orchestrate more terrorism and perhaps even a coup or civil war. He needed killing. Not killing him for so many years was immoral. The malignant morons who presume that they are demonstrating some type of enlightened, superior morality by lambasting President Trump for exterminating this vermin are profoundly evil. Honor Harrington would have beaten him to death.

No one would defend the the man. The question is whether or not Trumps actions made anything better or have simply started us down the path of a war nobody really wants. I guess we'll soon find out...

Don

-

Trump just lose the elections in 2020.

I don't want to fight the quote structure, so I will just respond in sequence.

Killing General Sulinami is somewhat similar to killing Bin Laden. Both assasinations were morally correct. However; both assassination provoked consequences. One should consider consequences and evaluate them in context of the future threat.

Bin Laden was ailing, isolated and almost retired. He seemed to be more interested in his collection of pornography than masterminding terrorism. By killing Bin Laden within an easy stroll from Pakistan's military academy, Obama not only revealed complicity by elements within the Pakistan military, he embarrassed a rather secular, democraticly elected government that already controlled a formidable nuclear arsenal. The consequence of the assination was the election of a far more militant islamicist government that seems intent on provoking a nuclear war with India. However; it was possible to kill Bin Laden without provoking those consequences. If President Obama was convinced that Pakistan's President would not act if the HE PERSONALLY revealed Bin Laden's whereabouts to him, a B-1 dropping a MOAB would have whereabouts far more discrete.

In the case of General Sulinami, he was an active, continuing threat. He was provoking a low intensity civil war within Iraq to increase Iranian influence with the obvious goal of domination. The vote by the Iraqi parliament when only Shia were attending without Sunni or Kurds dramatizes Iranian influence. Do you really think that the Suni and Kurds were outraged by his assination?

Killing Sulinami obviously pissed off the Iranians. They were already pissed off. Everyone on this board wants to blame Trump for the Iranians breaching the treaty. The capabilities that they are now revealing indicate that they were building the infrastructure to mass produce advanced centrifuges BEFORE Trump withdrew from the Treaty. Iran was going to go nuclear just like Pakistan and North Korea. Trump MIGHT be able to stop Iran from getting nukes, but probably can not. A nuclear armed Iran is far more problematic if Iran controls Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Even a neoisolationist such as myself recognizes the value of maintaining a balance of power between Saidi Arabia vs Iran even though the Saudis are vermin.