Donald the Dove, the peace President, out here threatening war crimes again.

It’s a coherent anti-interventionist mindset.

1/4/2020 7:20:48 PM

We shall see. The war hasn't started yet and I honestly don't think Trump thought this could have those type of consequences. I don't think Trump wants a war but I do think he wants people to think he's willing to start one. He's a dove but doesn't want people to predict his actions as a dove if that makes sense. (Like a big soft dude who pretends to be a bully so no one tests him) I'll admit I was wrong if a war actually starts.

I think he's more of a "shoot first ask questions later" type of guy and will start to realize that he doesn't want a war once he has more time to think all of this over. He knows strikes make him look "presidential" to mainstream republicans who he was starting to lose so theres that. I think Trump will eventually watch enough Tucker Carlson to realize that a war is a bad idea.

[Edited on January 4, 2020 at 8:15 PM. Reason : or it could just be a 3d chess move to force iraq to kick us out]


[Edited on January 4, 2020 at 8:18 PM. Reason : he loves being unpredictable. his strategies are all in his books. ]

1/4/2020 8:13:01 PM

tRuMp iS a dOvE

[Edited on January 4, 2020 at 8:45 PM. Reason : rEaD hIs bOoKs]

1/4/2020 8:45:13 PM

He is totally triangulating this as an excuse to get out of Iraq sooner

1/4/2020 8:57:53 PM

Quote :

" I think he's more of a "shoot first ask questions later" type of guy and will start to realize that he doesn't want a war once he has more time to think all of this over."

Introspection. Top of the list of things I think about when I hear the name Donald Trump.

You are a broken person.

1/4/2020 9:03:58 PM

I think you read it wrong. Impulsive would be the correct word.

1/4/2020 9:24:45 PM

Quote :

"I honestly don't think Trump thought this could have those type of consequences."

That's because he has a mild form of retardation.

Quote :

"I don't think Trump wants a war but I do think he wants people to think he's willing to start one."

Reminds me of another dictator, what was his name, I forgot. Oh yea, Saddam Hussein.

Quote :

"I think he's more of a "shoot first ask questions later" type of guy and will start to realize that he doesn't want a war once he has more time to think all of this over."

Because as we all know, it's so easy to just stop a war once it's started.

You Trump people are amazing. Just wait and see the effort China and Russia pour into pinning us down in some massive land war in Iran. You think Iraq was bad?

[Edited on January 4, 2020 at 9:31 PM. Reason : a]

[Edited on January 4, 2020 at 9:33 PM. Reason : a]

1/4/2020 9:30:04 PM

I still haven’t seen a valid reason why 20,000 troops have been sent even though they keep publicly talking about a drawn down and bringing the troops home.

1/4/2020 9:31:42 PM

^I missed this one, is this a recent deployment or is this the accumulated deployments over the last X years? Sorry, just haven't focused much on ME for a while.

1/4/2020 9:39:12 PM

Troops added to the region the past year.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-considers-14-000-more-troops-for-mideast-11575494228

This is slightly out of date but the true number is around 18,500 this year when you add in the recent deployments. I’m not sure how many of any were added last year. They’re not being sent to Syria it seems like they’re just parking them in Saudi Arabia right now... unless trump is planning a switcharoo and is going to attack the saudis...

I know the military likes to waste money but I can’t believe they’re doing all these movements for nothing...?

[Edited on January 5, 2020 at 1:31 AM. Reason : ]

1/5/2020 1:25:59 AM

Ah gotcha. No this is because Iran has been hitting the Sauds via proxies. And apparently the Sauds can't defend themselves even with the billions and billions of dollars of arms we've given them over the years.

1/5/2020 11:24:03 AM

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1213593975732527112?s=21

Terrorist state

https://twitter.com/chrismurphyct/status/1213510762817376261?s=21

And another example of a stupid liberal statement

https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1213665218020171777?s=21

And a very good one

[Edited on January 5, 2020 at 12:45 PM. Reason : .]

1/5/2020 12:22:58 PM

Quote :

" This is stunning - #Iraq prime minister tells parliament US troops should leave. Says @realDonaldTrump called him to ask him to mediate with #Iran and then ordered drone strike on Soleimani. Says Soleimani carrying response to Saudi initiative to defuse tension when he was hit."

https://twitter.com/janearraf/status/1213823941321592834?s=21

1/5/2020 12:52:37 PM

US halts operations against Islamic state. They’ve definitely been laying the groundwork for the war with Iran for a while now.

Quote :

" The cessation of American operations against the Islamic State is likely to allow what remains of the terrorist group to reconstitute itself in the ungoverned spaces it flourishes in, much as it did when Turkey invaded northern Syria in October."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/05/us/politics/us-isis-iran.amp.html#click=https://t.co/8wDk37rsh1

1/5/2020 1:06:45 PM

Bear in mind, regarding the Iraqi parliament, that only the Shia voted and the Sunnis and Khurds abstained from the vote.

It's basically an Iranian puppet government, kind of like what Putin has been accomplishing with Trump and his sycophant Republican supporters in Congress.

[Edited on January 5, 2020 at 1:24 PM. Reason : A]

1/5/2020 1:22:46 PM

Why would Putin order that strike?

1/5/2020 1:28:55 PM

I didn't say he did....

But I'm sure Russia would love to get us locked down in an internally divisive middle eastern war to fuck with us the same way we did in Afghanistan with the Soviet Union.

Stop posting here until you've caught up with basic geopolitics, jesus.

1/5/2020 2:00:44 PM

It was a sarcastic question for the people who think Putin is calling all the shots in DC and by "caught up" you mean indoctrinated into adopting the world view of the people who taught you everything you believe.

1/5/2020 2:08:50 PM

Quote :

" BREAKING: #Iran will no longer abide by ANY limits of its 2015 nuclear deal per State TV. (AP)"

https://twitter.com/joyce_karam/status/1213885625423859713?s=21

^^ I’m skeptical of what you’re saying, but you’re saying the outcome of 16 years of war on Iraq is a puppet government controlled by the country trump wants to go to war with?


[Edited on January 5, 2020 at 2:28 PM. Reason : ]

1/5/2020 2:26:01 PM

https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1213839915190013959?s=21

Rubio suggesting a Kurdish state in Iraq in response to Iraq kicking out America

1/5/2020 3:48:20 PM

A nuance I missed... Iran is staying in the Iran nuclear deal they’re just ignoring the nuclear limitations. Apparently intending to maintain the international inspections agreements.

1/5/2020 5:42:41 PM

WaPo reporting pompeo was behind the assassination of sulemani
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/killing-of-soleimani-follows-long-push-from-pompeo-for-aggressive-action-against-iran-but-airstrike-brings-serious-risks/2020/01/05/092a8e00-2f7d-11ea-be79-83e793dbcaef_story.html

1/5/2020 6:46:55 PM

It’s not talked about nearly enough how much of a dangerous freak show Pompeo is. Besides being a gigantic political hack he is also a crazy ass rapturist.

1/5/2020 8:33:03 PM

^^^Lol if you think they ever actually adhered to any limitations.

1/5/2020 8:34:44 PM

^ they mostly did because they really want to be part of the global community. They’re a nation of highly educated people, they’re the 2nd most democratic country in the region after Israel, they have more women in STEM as a proportion of their students than the US, they have oil and science and entertainment and tourism that they want to open up to the world. They’re not like North Korea which has no substantial internal development and needs the assistance nuclear weapons affords them.

1/5/2020 8:41:12 PM

Ok.

We as a nation have many highly intelligent folk as well, and look at our leadership.

Trump is going to do what presidents have tried to do since WWI. He's going to obtain peace in the Middle East, and he's going to do it by uniting them all against a common enemy.

1/5/2020 8:46:30 PM

McCain is dancing in his grave right about now

1/5/2020 8:56:13 PM

Trump doubling down on targeting civilian centers in Iran. He might as well beg the terrorists to attack again— maybe that’s his intention since it might make more people support him?

Also saying if Iraq ratified bill to kick out America he’d either destroy joint military bases on the way out and/or levy new sanctions.

1/5/2020 9:15:55 PM

I didn’t hear that he’d destroy them...only that “they’d pay for them”. And I heard cultural sites(which is a war crime!!!) not civilian centers. We are better than this.

1/6/2020 4:42:10 AM

Quote :

"nd he's going to do it by uniting them all against a common enemy."

Us or Iran?

1/6/2020 9:45:01 AM

The greatest national security threat is Iran with nuclear.----Romney in 2012

1/6/2020 10:00:33 AM

^^^
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1213593975732527112?s=21

And cultural sites are civilian centers

1/6/2020 10:43:01 AM

Does anyone have a link to something describing how Solemani killed hundreds of Americans? The media is so full of shit they never go beyond "responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans" yet they keep repeating it every 5 minutes. Doesn't something like that deserve an explanation? Why have we never heard about Iran killing hundreds of Americans? Why have we never responded until now?

If its true, I'm guessing those Americans were working with extremist groups similar to AlQ and ISIS. I brought this up to a friend and he thought all those groups were backed by Iran. This typical American had no idea of the concept that Iran was Shia and fought against these Sunni terror groups. I blame that on the media because they intentionally leave out details.

[Edited on January 6, 2020 at 11:24 AM. Reason : gonna need to see some receipts]

1/6/2020 11:23:01 AM

^^^^Us

[Edited on January 6, 2020 at 11:23 AM. Reason : ^]

1/6/2020 11:23:11 AM

Quote :

" Lol if you think they ever actually adhered to any limitations"

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-04/news/iaea-says-iran-abiding-nuclear-deal

these things are easy to look up, no matter what your gut feeling tells you

1/6/2020 11:35:30 AM

Quote :

"they’re the 2nd most democratic country in the region after Israe"

I know Iraq is broken but aren't they the most democratic country in the region? They don't have apartheid or religious Supreme leaders

1/6/2020 11:39:22 AM

https://theoutline.com/post/8500/iraq-war-again-iran

Quote :

"One of the signal fears of our time is that, with the rise of the internet and the impossibility of ever truly deleting anything from it, humans have now created a reality in which a person can never escape the permanent shadow of their own worst mistakes; that you are never more than a moderately thorough Google name search away from being ruined by the stupidest, most ignorant and attention-seeking take you fired onto MySpace as a pimply 16-year-old whole decades ago. Yet here is an entire class of people — hell, not even just a class! In many cases it’s a very specific group of individuals! — whose complete failure, as leaders, as strategists, as analysts, as reporters, as prognosticators, already and in full view of the whole human race killed millions of people, destroyed a society, and fucked up an entire region of the globe… running it back! In much the same positions of authority and prominence as before. The warmongers are never ruined by their mistakes; that’s a consequence they’ll go on assigning to the whole rest of the world, until there’s no world left to bear it."

1/6/2020 2:22:49 PM

Eyyyyy

https://twitter.com/cillizzacnn/status/1214293900803923969?s=21

1/6/2020 6:55:46 PM

Are you dunking on cc or sincerely posting one of that dopes tweets.

1/6/2020 7:40:52 PM

illustrating how even the dumbest of journalists can distort words if they aren't clear, consistent, and straight to the message

1/6/2020 7:56:15 PM

Calling him a journalist is a stretch, he's basically PAID to distort words

And dumb people can distort literally anything, I'm not sure any candidate should be tailoring their message to the dumbest people in the room.

1/6/2020 8:26:33 PM

Quote :

"I’m skeptical of what you’re saying, but you’re saying the outcome of 16 years of war on Iraq is a puppet government controlled by the country trump wants to go to war with?"

That's correct, though it's likely less Trump wanting to go to war with Iran and more his handpicked bastion of inexperienced and uneducated cabinet officials and advisers that want to. Kind of like how Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Cheney basically goaded Bush into Iraq.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_intervention_in_Iraq_(2014%E2%80%93present)

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/iraq-irans-involvement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pquuOnLz7Ww

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/04/793662756/iran-s-powerful-influence-in-iraq

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/18/leaked-cables-reveal-scale-of-irans-influence-in-iraq

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/05/793746580/iraqi-parliament-votes-to-expel-u-s-troops-from-country-in-wake-of-soleimani-str

Quote :

"Sunni and Kurdish members of parliament boycotted the session, but Shiite parties, many of them Iranian backed, had enough votes to pass the resolution."

Quote :

"Does anyone have a link to something describing how Solemani killed hundreds of Americans?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qasem_Soleimani

The intelligence indicating imminent attacks almost certainly exists. But that's par for the course in ME. The assassination is a clear escalation of something that was likely considered, though not publicly so stated, to be an acceptable thing to live with given the alternatives. And since our President has the brain of a nine year old, there is almost zero chance he or any of his loyal friends have thought beyond pulling the trigger. In fact, in a comical sense, you could argue they looked backwards rather than forwards, considering Trump's remarks about Obama and Iran in 2011.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QdBPP7nMfI

[Edited on January 6, 2020 at 10:40 PM. Reason : a]

1/6/2020 10:29:57 PM

I don't see accusations of him being involved in the killing of Americans anywhere in that wiki page. I only see alleged collaborations with the US and his role in supporting Iraq and Syria in the fight against ISIS. Am I just blind? Kinda crazy that everyone in the media and congress is pushing a narrative that has no documentation. Orwellian crazy.


Another thing I'm seeing all over social media is that the Iraqi PM alleges Solemani was on a peace mission and had just met to discuss an agreement and was headed to the airport to carry a message from the Saudis to Iran. There doesn't seem any way to confirm if this is true in a nation without journalists. If that is the case thought and it turns out he was lured into position to be assassinated and there was no imminent attack, then its perfidy and a war crime punishable by death according to US law. Of course no American would ever be prosecuted for war crimes but its interesting for those of us keeping score at home.

1/6/2020 11:39:15 PM

^

Quote :

"The US has always been a terrorist, genocidal nation, pre-founding till now. Nothing new."

Quote :

"Mark my words, America and Iran are not going to war, nor will they ever. American needs Iran in the region as much as Iran needs America. Iran is America's most important bogeyman with which it forces itself on others in the region. And America is Iran's bogeyman to which it chants slogans of death to amass followers and export its revolution. Both know their limits. They play a perpetual game of cat and mouse, with each targeting the other within certain, but somewhat undefined, limits. Killing of Qassem Sulaimani was a calculated strike which is for the good of both America and Iran. The former boosts its image as defender of the Sunnis in the region. And Iran, although it probably did not see the strike coming, reaps several benefits as well, such as: 1. It got rid of Sulaimani in the most honorable way possible - martyrdom. He was becoming a sort of liability for the regime for having disfranchised the Sunnis against Iran, because of his direct or indirect role in the massacre of Sunni tribes under the guise of fighting ISIS. Some in the Iran government might even have considered him to be amassing too much power, making him a potential threat to the power holders in the regime. 2. Iraq, Iran and Lebanon were undergoing strong protests against the Mullah-regime of Iran and its interference in the region. Now martyrdom of Sulaimani will win back the sympathies of many disfranchised Shiites who were in those protests side-by-side with Sunnis. It will be used as call to rally Shiites in support of the so-called "axis of resistance" which Iran supposedly leads against America and Israel. Moreover, America and Iran have cooperated in Iraq and Afghanistan in battling common enemies such as ISIS. And Sulaimani was never put on the those wanted or charged for terrorism. That is why the strike might come as a surprise, but America knows Iran will not start a full fledged war against it for doing so."

1/7/2020 12:43:51 AM

^^1) Avoid social media if you're looking for facts...
2) You only skimmed then and surely didn't click any of the other links, follow any of the sourcing within Wikipedia or spend 15 minutes searching Google.

Here, I'll spoon-feed you again: https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/604441/
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1Z301Z
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/soleimani-approved-attack-iraqi-military-base-killed-american/story?id=68056126

Sorry for being ass but I deal with this every single day at work - people refusing to do their own work and research when you have all the tools at your disposal.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Baghdad_International_Airport_airstrike
https://www.thedailybeast.com/qassem-soleimani-met-with-militias-in-october-to-plan-attacks-on-americans-in-iraq-report



[Edited on January 7, 2020 at 9:56 AM. Reason : A]

[Edited on January 7, 2020 at 10:02 AM. Reason : A]

1/7/2020 9:52:14 AM

No you were just being too vague and I wanted you to state a clear position so I don't have to strawman. Theres a reason why the media omits how he killed american troops.

Quote :

"Iranian-supplied roadside bombs and Iran-backed militias were killing hundreds of American troops."

So is the assumption that the supplier of weapons automatically responsible for killings by said weapons?

Quote :

" sources briefed on the gathering told Reuters"

according to completely unverifiable anonymous sources

Quote :

"America's top military officer said he is "100 percent" confident Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian commander killed in an airstrike Thursday, approved the attack on an Iraqi military base at the end of last month that killed an American."

Well I guess the research has been done. Top US general said it so it must be true. No further questions.

Spoon-feeding me information that was spoon-fed to you is not "fact-finding". The words of a hawkish US general should not be taken as fact. Do you even know what facts are?

Did you even know that the attack on that base was a retaliation to attacks on several of their bases in the previous weeks?

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/01/how-to-avoid-swallowing-war-propaganda
this happened to you

[Edited on January 7, 2020 at 1:22 PM. Reason : just now]

1/7/2020 12:53:28 PM

Do people actually read Earl's posts? Why?

1/7/2020 12:58:10 PM

whichone's earl?

or are you earl?

does that mean I read an earl post?

what is going to happen to me?

1/7/2020 1:14:23 PM

Lol

1/7/2020 1:45:04 PM

^^^^
That Current Affairs article is excellent

1/7/2020 1:53:50 PM