US threaten Iran with pre-emptive strike

when by chance the VERY SAME COUNTRY murders one of the leaders of the country, 67 years later, it's not hard for me to imagine people being angry. i'm sure someone will find an article indicating that a portion of the crowd is deeply connected to the deep state of iran or whatever, but it is very, very easy to imagine the real outrage among the rest of the country, and i don't feel that i need to "prove" something that is very obvious

Mark Esper looks like a guy trampled on many times in high school.

An old saw, I know, but I highly promote the notion of airdropping these telephone tough guys right on to the front lines of whatever conflict their words help foment. Let's see how macho you can be when your jaw gets ripped off by shrapnel, dickhole.

xxp sure but you can’t effectively leverage what’s not there! Pretty sure decades of American policy towards Iran did that job already. You don’t have to be a hard liner to think the actions of the US wrt flight 655 were despicable.

“We are not looking to start a war with Iran, but we are prepared to finish one"

When people imitate Hollywood characters in the belief that this is how real people are supposed to talk.

Like that’s going to be in living memory for lots more people than the overthrow of the Shah, and the captain was awarded medals ffs. 290 civilians dead, 66 of whom children, nothing amounting to an outright apology. It’s not abstract.

xp

some real people do talk like that (or at least hold views that align with that)! i guess i'm just thinking of people like macarthur.

reading a history of the Korean War right now, and it's interesting how often, on all sides of the conflict, everyone thought it would be a very quick and easy war

xp:
Its a slogan for domestic consumption. Slogans work, whether they're Deutchland uber alles or al-mawt li-ʾamrīkā or make America great again. Repeated often enough, they remodel default mode networks.

Before the Soleimani assassination, Iran was beset with domestic unrest over reductions in fuel subsidies (yes, that's just the proximate cause), with riot and political police killing hundreds. Iran's rulers don't have to worry about that for some time now that the U.S. has gifted them with an external locus for their anger.

reading a history of the Korean War right now, and it's interesting how often, on all sides of the conflict, everyone thought it would be a very quick and easy war

― But guess what? Nobody gives a toot!😂 (Karl Malone), Tuesday, January 7, 2020 1:27 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

See also: every war ever, conducted by people who apparently failed to read up on every prior war.

i wonder if Judith Miller read any of her old shit

Yeah, flight 655 matters a lot. The west was pretty clearly on the side of Iraq as well in the eighties, which was pretty despicable as well.

Whether it was 'despicable' depends on the measurements you are using. From the POV of western morality, there was no side to favor in the Iran-Iraq War, but in terms of pragmatic politics, it was obvious that the west would favor Iraq and would do so no matter how many times you ran that scenario.

the west was just happy for it to keep going, with most major western countries supplying both sides at some stage

The fact that (reportedly) anti-American billboards were put up after the assassination shows that the Iranian government is not exactly letting this play out on a strictly grassroots level.

Gosh, hard to imagine a state trying to influence public opinion.

xp. (the soviets also played both sides despite being closer to iraq, and china was a major supplier of both sides, it should be mentioned)

prolonging the war was the primary western strategy, but an eventual Iranian victory was never an acceptable outcome in the view of the major western powers.

I think morally - and long term strategically - supporting the side that invaded to begin with, and that really did use weapons of mass destruction, including against civilians, was very wrong.

Sir, if you're suggesting that the US has ever been an immoral actor in any global conflict...well, there simply are no words. Good day!

hey man we corrected that mistake by invading them a few times

x-post: Lol, indeed. But it's like Bob Marley once said: 'It was worse than a crime. It was a mistake.'

I think morally - and long term strategically - supporting the side that invaded to begin with, and that really did use weapons of mass destruction, including against civilians, was very wrong.

― Frederik B, Tuesday, January 7, 2020 12:09 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

iran also used wmd including against civilians. they also deployed chid soldiers on a massive scale. and although iraq was initially the aggressor, iran had pushed iraq out of iran by the spring of 1982, but continued an aggressive war against the iraqis, with the aim of regime change in iraq, despite the unlikelihood of this outcome and the military stalemate, for the majority of the war.

so the right wing talking point I'm seeing on FB is that this is actually okay since Iran kills homosexuals and women …?

iran also used wmd including against civilians.

This was never proven, though?

And, yeah, by 82 Iran was driving the war, but is that so surprising? If a neighboring country invades, and starts gassing border towns, you want to punish that country? Had the world done something before Iran pushed out Iraq on their own, perhaps the Iranians wouldn't have been so vindictive?

I'm not saying the Iranians were heroes here. But they were definitely the victims.

so the right wing talking point I'm seeing on FB is that this is actually okay since Iran kills homosexuals and women …?

― frogbs, Tuesday, January 7, 2020 2:29 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's not inconceivable that I'll live long enough to see the right espousing, say, overtly socialist talking points in the course of defending actions which might be of some benefit to them. No one said tribalism ever had to be coherent.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday reversed his threats to target Iranian sites of cultural importance following allegations that such measures would violate international law and constitute a war crime.

"If that's what the law is, I like to obey the law," Trump said.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-reverses-threats-targeting-iran-cultural-sites-obey-law-2020-1

4 Pinocchios

It's not inconceivable that I'll live long enough to see the right espousing, say, overtly socialist talking points

You already have! Or have you not noticed the last 30 years of GOP rhetoric is about the pampered, overprivileged elite which dominates our culture and exploits the labor value of Joe the Plumber and other large-bicepped proletarians like him?

lol this dude rules

One Iranian attending Soleimani's funeral ruthlessly mocked western media coverage of the events

"Why did you come here today?"

"We're not here, we've been photoshopped...

This crowd is made up of ten cops, six revolutionary guardsmen, & two guys they bribed with juice packs" pic.twitter.com/eudg9UOHNU

— Wyatt Reed (@wyattreed13) January 7, 2020

here we go (that an NYT journalist, so this is real afaict)

BREAKING: STATEMENT FROM IRGC:
"The brave soldiers of IRGC's aerospace unit have launched a successful attack with tens of ballistic missiles on Al Assad military base in the name of martyr Gen.Qasem Soleimani."#Iraq #Iran #AlAssadBase

— Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) January 7, 2020

BREAKING: Footage of Iran attack on US base Al Assad in Iraq.#AlAssad #Iraq pic.twitter.com/8CtLpgnsw6

— Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) January 7, 2020

Reports say Iran is firing dozens of missiles into Iraq, hitting U.S. forces at Al Asad Airbase. Early reports say 20 U.S. troops have died, amid 60+ missile strikes so far. If true, then we are at the precipice of another horrible war in the Middle East.

— Mark Hughes (@markhughesfilms) January 7, 2020

oh shit

shit

that "reports of 20 dead" post is from a screenwriter and "quora contributor", not a journalist

Thank God

Since when has the truth stopped the asshole? No doubt we're on the cusp of an "I hereby declare we are at war" tweet, fuck everything about him and his enablers forever.

Thanks.

so ashamed of this actual shithole country

Sick to my stomach. I've been sick to my stomach for years now.

CNN’s Barbara Starr reports that Pentagon officials have been hard to reach “because they were sent home early for what was supposed to be a major snowstorm.”

— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) January 7, 2020

Shitstorm, more like it

Video above looks like $3 M Patriot missiles being launched against $50k ballistic warheads.

I expected the next step to be the Iraqi government shutting off all grid water/electricity to US bases, and Iraqi militia setting up perimeters (at some distance) and checkpoints to prevent land supply. I still ~40% expect this to escalate to Iraqis levelling the US embassy compound with howitzer fire.

Long term, I've no doubt: the assassination of Soleimani means the US will be forced out of Iraq. Some $3 trillion and 4k+ American lives, not to mention 200k Iraqi lives and millions of displaced civilians, just so Iraq can become a puppet of Tehran. Its arguably the most stupid act by a major power in our lifetimes, alongside how the Russia seized Crimea and the Donbass.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/03/petraeus-on-qassem-suleimani-killing-says-trump-helped-reestablish-deterrence/

one of the smart ones

UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH

Sick to my stomach. I've been sick to my stomach for years now.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, January 7, 2020 5:48 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

ugh

the hell with this miserable country

US fighters have been scrambled from multiple locations, including the UAE.

Unsure if this is a defensive posture or we’re retaliating.

— Angry Staffer (@AngrierWHStaff) January 7, 2020

It goes without saying, and wargamers both professional and amateur have worked this out, Iran will lead with cheap disposable ballistics against American installations and ships. This depletes the finite number of Patriot missiles (land) and SM-2s (naval). Second and third waves will have the better, more recent, more expensive, guided stuff.

And when America launches reprisals from Gulf states, desalination plants will be among the first targets. A bunch of Bangladeshi and Punjabi workers who don't have a stake in this will be the first to die of thirst.