The Swamp

Seems bad. But I only dabble at history , so maybe I am off on this.

Only real question is if they name it “Operation Distraction” or not.

I mean. Shoulda waited for the Friday news dump at least.

This clip is from June but it’s pretty apropos now:



Sanders has done more to oppose Trump’s escalation toward war with Iran than any other Senator. He was the only Senator to vote against increased sanctions on Iran (a proposal which the GOP cynically tied to sanctions against Russia) and also voted against Trump’s military budget.

Well, at least I'm not deployed to the Middle East right now.

Wait.

Shit.

There is always a tweet...

I'm not sure this is an escalation. Your embassy was attacked and action was taken. We'll see what happens next but there is a huge spectrum of options between this action by a state in response to an attack on it's own soil and some kind of future full blown invasion.

My prediction is that Iran got its hand caught in the cookie jar and will quietly walk away.

Well this looks like an interesting read. Let's see...

Hypersonic Missiles Are a Game Changer

doodoodoo...

Moreover, hypersonics are a weaponized moral hazard for states with a taste for intervention, because they erase barriers to picking fights. Is an adversary building something that might be a weapons factory? Is there an individual in an unfriendly country who cannot be apprehended? What if the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Soleimani, visits Baghdad for a meeting and you know the address? The temptations to use hypersonic missiles will be many.

Written on 2 Jan, hours before the strike. 😳

Well, this thread is just dandy.

degenerasian wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2020 1:49 am I'm not sure this is an escalation. Your embassy was attacked and action was taken. We'll see what happens next but there is a huge spectrum of options between this action by a state in response to an attack on it's own soil and some kind of future full blown invasion.

My prediction is that Iran got its hand caught in the cookie jar and will quietly walk away.

There’s also a huge spectrum of options in response to a window getting broken at a US embassy before we get to “assassinate one of the most powerful figures in the Middle East.” It’s not just the Iranian government that could take action but all kinds of Shi’a groups and non-state actors. Already things have gotten a lot more unstable in Iraq if Sadr is going to do this.



Also, this is an important point that needs to be repeated ad nauseum until the Democratic leadership actually starts trying to *lead* on foreign policy issues.



188 House Dems, including Pelosi and Schiff, voted to approve the NDAA without Rep. Khanna’s amendment.

tennbengal wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2020 9:11 pm Seems bad. But I only dabble at history , so maybe I am off on this.

It's only bad if the foreign country has the capability to make things ugly for us.

So no worries!

Pretty good short thread from freshman Congresswoman from Michigan who is a former CIA analyst and expert on Iran.

Is the secondary "benefit" for these fucks that domestic retaliation would more likely take place post-election so either Trump wins and who cares or the Dems win and blame them?

mister d wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2020 12:53 pm Is the secondary "benefit" for these fucks that domestic retaliation would more likely take place post-election so either Trump wins and who cares or the Dems win and blame them?

They’re not thinking on that level. War with Iran has been a goal of neo-Con hardliners for at least 15 years. Remember when St. McCain sang “bomb Iran” during a 2008 campaign event?

And Israel and Saudi Arabia — the two counties that probably influence Trump’s foreign policy more than any others — would love nothing more than for the US to do their dirty work and start a shooting war with Iran.

mister d wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2020 12:53 pm Is the secondary "benefit" for these fucks that domestic retaliation would more likely take place post-election so either Trump wins and who cares or the Dems win and blame them?

I would think the goal would be to time a retaliation for right before the next election so everyone rallies around the flag.

Can you imagine what a Bush Did 9/11 would look like under Trump? All his lowest performing properties would be "attacked by terrorists" with his top people all happening to be off-site on that day.

Trump wouldn't get the ball to home plate

Nice work with the umlaut, New Yorker.

govmentchedda wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2020 3:08 pm Nice work with the umlaut, New Yorker.

Heh

govmentchedda wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2020 3:08 pm Nice work with the umlaut, New Yorker.

Umlauts are in their text style guide but had no idea that cartoonists had to adhere.

I over-analyzed it as a sly reference to the Reichstag fire.

Heh.

One thing I've noticed in the various news reports...in the timeline for all this, it started with killing of a US 'contractor'.

That 'contractor' was a mercenary, right? Most likely from Blackwater, right? Has anyone seen Erik Prince hanging around Mar-A-Lago lately?

From The Atlantic:

The Soleimani Strike Defied the U.S. Constitution

Someone help me out here: That thing about two trillion dollars on military equipment ... wtf? Isn’t that like three times the entire defense budget?

I’m seeing lots of folks talking about what else we could do with $2 trillion, but is that number even close to accurate?

He loves lying about military spending. People taking it at face value even if just to argue how it could better be spent probably doesn’t help.

Lots of info in this thread. Davidson wrote an article in 2017 outlining Trump orgs ties with the IRG through a Tump hotel deal in Azerbaijan.

Best description of all this now: we just added Stupid Iran Contra to Stupid Watergate.

Couldn’t we have just withdrawn from Iraq without assassinating anyone or causing any major geopolitical crises? I thought Middle East mastermind Jared Kushner was better than this.

This is weird.

The Iraqi PM tells the US to leave, and they are actually leaving?

What is going to happen next in Iraq? (Sincere, not sarcastic question)

Pruitt wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 4:04 pm This is weird.

The Iraqi PM tells the US to leave, and they are actually leaving?

What is going to happen next in Iraq? (Sincere, not sarcastic question)

Iraq will be essentially be controlled by Russia and Iran, much like Syria now.

brian wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 4:09 pm

Pruitt wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 4:04 pm This is weird.

The Iraqi PM tells the US to leave, and they are actually leaving?

What is going to happen next in Iraq? (Sincere, not sarcastic question)

Iraq will be essentially be controlled by Russia and Iran, much like Syria now.

Neat. The people that support the party that unabashedly worships the military should now see what an awful idea killing thousands of American troops over the course of a 10 year war was and the progressives should have their unwavering support now that they've seen the error of their ways. Everything comes up roses.

brian wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 4:09 pm

Pruitt wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 4:04 pm This is weird.

The Iraqi PM tells the US to leave, and they are actually leaving?

What is going to happen next in Iraq? (Sincere, not sarcastic question)

Iraq will be essentially be controlled by Russia and Iran, much like Syria now.

The Intelligence and Military communities say Russia controlling Iraq is bad for the US, but Putin said it's good for the US, so I believe Putin.

In all seriousness, I don't know what to make out of all of this. While I don't like keeping troops in Iraq, the thought of withdrawing them scares me. Especially when Trump withdraws in capitulation to Iraq requesting we withdraw because Trump assassinated a powerful Iranian general. Yes, there is some truth that I tend to think Trump withdrawing troops is bad, while I probably would have been more comfortable with Obama withdrawing troops. Is this "Trump Derangement Syndrome" or Obama worship? Maybe to a degree, but I also know Obama would have listened to all advice from all of the most knowledgeable and intelligent people, and carefully weighed the scenarios. Did he make wrong decisions in hindsight? Absolutely. I think I'm justified in believing Trump makes decisions without much concern over long term strategy or care over whether it benefits the US. He will act without knowledge or information, and will impulsively do whatever he thinks has the most immediate benefit to himself. He publicly proclaims himself smarter and better informed than all the generals and Intel communities, not to mention he completely gutted the State Department and cut the balls off the Intel agencies, so he doesn't even have the extent or reliability of the information Obama or every other President had.

We are so fucked, and it amazes me the power of blind loyalty.

This is becoming a VEEP episode...

DaveInSeattle wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 5:01 pm

This is becoming a VEEP episode...

These guys are such incompetents.

In all honesty, if the assassination requires us to bug out of Iraq, so be it. I've wanted us to withdraw from there for years, and while I'd prefer an orderly withdrawal under a competent president, I don't think a chaotic withdrawal under an incompetent president would be much different.

Steve of phpBB wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 5:05 pm These guys are such incompetents.

In all honesty, if the assassination requires us to bug out of Iraq, so be it. I've wanted us to withdraw from there for years, and while I'd prefer an orderly withdrawal under a competent president, I don't think a chaotic withdrawal under an incompetent president would be much different.

I strongly agree with this view. And frankly, I don’t think the US should be using military and economic resources to limit Iranian influence in Iraq. Iran and Iraq have significant geographic and cultural ties and it’s probably better that they are allies than enemies, like they were when they fought a brutal war in the 1980s. That war (which we intervened in by giving weapons to Saddam) imposed a terrible toll on both countries.

I think we need a better explanation then this. A cruise missile isn't going to follow a civilian take off profile then that. Plus the whole transponder and size compared to a relatively stealth cruise missile that's tiny and would show up tiny on screen.


I think that if Iran wants to really fix this then beyond the black box, they need to deliver the data recordings from the battery that fired to see what they saw, as well as access to the crew of the battery and the commander of the areas air defense network.

I think that Trudeau and the other countries effected need to push on this pretty hard for answers and compensation.

At least they could have said we thought it was a bomber etc. This explanation is hard to buy into.

Ukraine wants everything.