We are entering a state of undeclared war, having assassinated the most powerful military leader in the middle east, Soleimani, who is also a cult leader in Iran, and could quite possibly have become the next President of Iran, if he had wanted.
This undeclared war is expected to be asymmetrical. Iran should be capable of inflicting some major damage on USA interests, if they have the cojones. Our chicken hawks, like Lindsey Graham are having multiple orgasms just thinking about bombing the piss out of Iran.
I wonder whether the world now considers the assassination of top military/political figures as fair game? I imagine Iran thinks so, now.
“Behind the official yet dubious justifications for the U.S. airstrike that killed a top Iranian general on Friday lies a confluence of factors — some decades in the making, others more recent — that are pushing the U.S. towards yet another catastrophic war in the Middle East.”
and
“Notably, the assassination of Soleimani comes just a few months after an alleged Israeli attempt to kill the Iranian general failed and amid a well-documented and decades-long push by U.S. neoconservatives and Israeli officials for a U.S.-led war with Iran.”
The dotard knows that the undertakers could get rich off a war. That’s all war is good for. Either young people are maimed or they are killed and if they aren’t maimed enough, they get thrown back out there on the battlefield, sometimes with TBI. The Repugs don’t care. Of course, I hear they did such things under President Obama’s watch too. The dotard is also hoping that if he starts WWIII, he’ll be re-elected. He’s under the false impression that presidents who have a war under their watch they get re-elected.
I am not convinced that T rump wants any protracted military action or asymmetrical conflict. But his hubris has inevitably led us to this with Iran. Iran will strike back, at some point in the not too distant future. Then if Trumpublicans like Lindsay Graham get their way, we will bomb the holy hell out of Iran. Graham believes this will lead to Iran capitulating to whatever we want. I don’t think he is correct about that. Obviously we could devastate Iran militarily, but Iran can attack us in various ways that could potentially hurt us badly. They are currently the most successful at terroristic activities in the mid east. They can target our diplomatic institutions some more. They can target economic targets that can hurt us. They can probably export terroristic activities to the USA. They have capabilities in cyber warfare. And even their military is more than we usually try to beat up on.
I don’t recall us assassinating a top military and political figure during the Obama administration. (T rump did not alert congress about the intended assassination, at least not any Dems. He did apparently talk it all over with Lindsey Graham who visited with him at Mara Lago last weekend.)
What the war is about is Israel. The Islamic leaders in Iran want Israel dead and gone. The USA is not going to let that happen. Until Islam accepts that Israel has a legitimate right to exist, or Israel is eliminated, war will continue.
The average dude on the street in Iran is pretty much like his or her counterpart in the USA except for one thing; they are subjected to Islam and they don’t believe they can do anything about it. It is very unlikely that the people in the USA will ever consent to our leaders allowing Israel to be eliminated. It is a bit more likely, in the long term, that the people of Iran will opt for a secular government and oust the current theocracy.
The Islamic leaders know that the USA will not engage in any massive destruction of Iran which could permanently alienate the people of Iran. Thus the conflict will continue as asymmetric warfare.
So, Bob, T rump assassinated a foreign state military/political leader in order to save Israel from destruction?? That is an even more far out lie than saying that Soleimani was imminently about to kill some unspecified Americans somewhere in the middle east (and T rump still hasn’t presented evidence of this) and had to be assassinated in order to stop him.
Our POTUS is a LIAR. We cannot trust anything he says. And he does not present evidence. He hides evidence.
In the cycle of slow motion tit for tat asymmetrical attacks that will occur with more regularity now, things can go from bad to horrific at any time. Lindsey Graham has already called for us to ready our bombs to take out the Iranian oil infrastructure, because he thinks this will bring Iran to its knees or lead to regime change.
Bob said “…It is a bit more likely, in the long term, that the people of Iran will opt for a secular government and oust the current theocracy.”
Regime change? How could we go wrong with starting another war in the expectation of regime change???
Assassinating a foreign state leader (even tho he richly deserves it) is an act of war. The USA (via T rump) did it.
Israel is NOT safer because of this, even if we wind up bombing Iran’s society back a 100 years or so.
And we are putting more troops in the Mideast because of this. Did T rump campaign on putting more troops in the Mideast? Is this another of his promises made, promises kept (gag me)?
This current mess started with T rump re-nigging on the Nuclear deal and replacing it with “Max Pressure” on Iran.
T rump lied so much about that deal that I am surprised that he didn’t lie some of his fat ass off.
(I recall T rump also lied regularly about Obamacare and promised to end it and “replace it with something better”. He ALMOST ended it (John McCain stopped him). But T rump had nothing to replace it. He is still trying to end it (thru the courts) with nothing to replace it.)
T rump is one big can of hubris. He is taking us places that will not MAGA. And it looks like the Shiites are about to hit the fan. (Tho maybe they will 1st observe a period of mourning for Soleimani.)
Now that T rump has expanded his repertoire of dictatorial powers to include the assassination of foreign state leaders, perhaps this will become a popular thing to do around the world.
If assassinating foreign state leaders is now acceptable, perhaps Kim Jung Un will decide he doesn’t love T rump anymore, and wants to have T rump knocked off. Our secret service’s jobs just became more difficult.
This idea that one people can eliminate another is from a bygone era and has no place in the modern world. Ideas do not have borders. There is no such thing as race. You can never have enough power to eliminate Islam, Jews, or similar groups. The amount of killing required would make you the worst war criminal in history. Then you have to destroy buildings, books, electronic data, and all the scholars with knowledge.
Citizenschallenge-v.3: “so why is it such a hopeless nightmare that simply gets worse and worse?”
Israel was established and the political maps were drawn post WW-II without consulting the locals. They were not principal combatants, but lost what many thought of as their lands. Persia (Iran) has a long history of conquering and being conquered, as do all the nations in that area. The current fight is just another in the process of becoming reconciled to the reality of history.
As they say: this too will pass. Just as in the Civil War and the civil rights clashes in the US a couple, or three or maybe more, generations will have to die off before a final reconciliation can happen. The Egyptians don’t complain about the Romans much any more and the UK doesn’t moan and groan too much about the loss of their american colonies any more. You can bet those were really big deals at the time.
People will die. There will be wailing and a gnashing of teeth in the lands. History will continue - as usual.
Well that is not very helpful, Bob. You offer: “Many hundreds of years heals all wounds. And bad stuff happens, always has, so don’t bother about it.”
What? You don’t think Jared Kushner is going to negotiate Peace in the Mid East?
In case readers on the Forums don’t just automatically believe every far out sounding thing I say, here is a link supporting my assertion in my previous post:
There is still a Neo Conservative base (those chicken hawks who brought us and made a stinking mess of Iraq) in the Trumpublican party. Now, they also have the Alt-Righters who know that hate-mongering is a great way to achieve political power. Then we have the leader of the Trumpublicans who cares first and foremost about maintaining and increasing his own power. Considering his character and his incompetence, should we just whistle in the dark and pretend it is ok that some really bad things are going to happen, and should we just blithely realize that history is bad and always will be? With this philosophy, we don’t need to do anything except wait for hundreds of years, when we will have gotten over the horrors of the present debacle, tho we will be faced, then, by another.
I caught wee bits of the 2 playoff games. The Saints and the Eagles are eliminated. The Vikings and the Seahawks move on.
Our toilets work. Our water is clean enough not to kill us right away. We have fast foods and snacks out the kazoo. And we have all the entertainment we can dream of. What more do we need to be content about going in to another devastating war, when so few of us are sure to be directly effected, at least not in ways we are aware of?
I doubt that the “bread and circuses” that we have today, are part of some plot to keep the masses under control. I think that they are just a natural part of a capitalist system, in which profits are made by providing “bread and circuses”.
But regardless of that, they do a great job of keeping us under control. Today, “bread” is short for anything you could possible want to eat, drink, or physically consume, and “circuses” are short for movies, tv shows, sports teams, travel, breaking news of catastrophes, and even political contests. Honestly, it’ hard to imagine that we have a chance at jointly uprising against unnecessary and devastating participation in wars.
What the war is about is Israel. The Islamic leaders in Iran want Israel dead and gone. The USA is not going to let that happen. Until Islam accepts that Israel has a legitimate right to exist, or Israel is eliminated, war will continue.