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First, let me say that Qassem Suleimani was a piece of shit that deserved what he got. He was responsible for countless deaths in the region of Americans and our allies. If you didn't know, he was essentially the Supreme Leader of Iran's sword, carrying out overt and covert actions that amounted to state sponsored terrorism.
There are a lot of comparisons of this action to others in the past, but from my understanding there is no comparable situation. Suleimani was actually a high ranking Iranian official, which was not the case for other high profile assholes we've assassinated in the past. This has caused a lot of concern among people about what is going to be happening next. I'm not jumping on the #WW3 bandwagon from Twitter, but this will likely become a serious conflict. We already had some of the 82nd Airborne being deployed due to the events leading up to the drone strike, and that will likely just be the tip of the spear.
Unfortunately, Trump neglected to notify Congress of the activity (though did apparently find time to tell his children) before the strike. Not much is known about what the plan or expectation is going forward, but we're in uncharted territory.
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There is an old Trump tweet for everything...
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(01-03-2020, 09:07 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: First, let me say that Qassem Suleimani was a piece of shit that deserved what he got. He was responsible for countless deaths in the region of Americans and our allies. If you didn't know, he was essentially the Supreme Leader of Iran's sword, carrying out overt and covert actions that amounted to state sponsored terrorism.
There are a lot of comparisons of this action to others in the past, but from my understanding there is no comparable situation. Suleimani was actually a high ranking Iranian official, which was not the case for other high profile assholes we've assassinated in the past. This has caused a lot of concern among people about what is going to be happening next. I'm not jumping on the #WW3 bandwagon from Twitter, but this will likely become a serious conflict. We already had some of the 82nd Airborne being deployed due to the events leading up to the drone strike, and that will likely just be the tip of the spear.
Unfortunately, Trump neglected to notify Congress of the activity (though did apparently find time to tell his children) before the strike. Not much is known about what the plan or expectation is going forward, but we're in uncharted territory.
Am I wrong to be concerned that an impulsive "man" who wants to be a tough guy (but claims to not want wars) made this decision and then probably never thought about would to do next?
Some of what I heard is that this really did hurt Iran and so the response may be delayed but that it may also be big.
As an aside my libertarian friends on FB who campaigned against Clinton because she was just a continuation of the "war machine" are very quiet on what their boy DJT is doing.
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And for the record DJT hasn't said a word about it until a few minutes ago. Just tweeted a clip art American flag.
Then he tweeted this:
Along with a bunch of retweets.
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This is a very interesting Twitter thread discussing the legal implications:
And this is a great thread on the situation more generally:
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This is a complicated situation.
If the Trump adminstration had not pulled out of the Iranian anti-nuclear agreement and crawled into bed with Israel we would be standing on much higher ground right now. It would look more like a justified strike to address Iranian state sponsered terrorism. But now it looks more like another attempt by Trump to goad Iran into a conflict in order to fight a proxy war for Israel.
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Surprise of surprises: I have no issue with the highly classified mission that killed of this enemy of our country and its allies. It's not a partisan issue; as many here and Nationally attempt to paint it. I applauded Obama's strike to kill bin Laden. Maybe there's a reason Trump is Putin's BFF. If we get Russian influence to stay out of our affairs we can save many more American and allied lives.
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(01-03-2020, 12:33 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Surprise of surprises: I have no issue with the highly classified mission that killed of this enemy of our country and its allies. It's not a partisan issue; as many here and Nationally attempt to paint it. I applauded Obama's strike to kill bin Laden. Maybe there's a reason Trump is Putin's BFF. If we get Russian influence to stay out of our affairs we can save many more American and allied lives.
Of course no one is surprised you think Trump did the right thing and support it...that happens all the time.
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Nor are we surprised that you would condemn it.
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(01-03-2020, 01:14 PM)masonbengals fan Wrote: Nor are we surprised that you would condemn it.
Did I?
Or did I question what the motive was or if there is a plan to face what will come next based on the administrations lack of experience and history of not being prepared?
Anyway...at least the admin isn't just repeating what the Bush admin did during the Iraq war.
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(01-03-2020, 01:04 PM)GMDino Wrote: Of course no one is surprised you think Trump did the right thing and support it...that happens all the time.
Cotton Candy
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My concern here is this is a departure from simply drone striking terrorist leaders, this is drone striking a high ranking government official. Obviously our classification of the Iranian Royal Guard complicates that, but this is far different then the Osama Bin Laden mission.
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(01-03-2020, 12:33 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Surprise of surprises: I have no issue with the highly classified mission that killed of this enemy of our country and its allies. It's not a partisan issue; as many here and Nationally attempt to paint it. I applauded Obama's strike to kill bin Laden. Maybe there's a reason Trump is Putin's BFF. If we get Russian influence to stay out of our affairs we can save many more American and allied lives.
Obama's strike on OBL's compound was a different animal, though, and that's what I am having trouble with. Bin Laden's death was due to an ongoing conflict with an organization that had Congressional approval. This is escalating a conflict with another country (and was apparently done without the host country having any knowledge of it). In a pure "another asshole bites the dust" mentality, sure, great job. In a "what does this mean moving forward?" mentality, that is a very complicated issue and we will have to wait and see what occurs.
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(01-03-2020, 12:33 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Surprise of surprises: I have no issue with the highly classified mission that killed of this enemy of our country and its allies. It's not a partisan issue; as many here and Nationally attempt to paint it. I applauded Obama's strike to kill bin Laden. Maybe there's a reason Trump is Putin's BFF. If we get Russian influence to stay out of our affairs we can save many more American and allied lives.
I find it hard to compare this with the strike against Bin Laden. This was a totally different set of circumstances.
Bin Laden was not another country's high ranking official, but a terror network leader without any official backing. Who directly attacked the US in the most prolific terror strike ever. And who was a declared US target for years. No other country saw that strike as an act of war.
As for Putin, I am not willing to give Trump any credit for being BFF with him. Regarding real and not just highly speculative possible effects, only one of those two gentlemen's countries has benefitted.
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Qassem Suleimani was the head of a terrorist organization that had recently killed and were targeting American citizens.
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(01-03-2020, 01:14 PM)masonbengals fan Wrote: Nor are we surprised that you would condemn it.
I try to be pretty not be "nuanced" when it comes to foreign affair matters such as these. While I applaud this and other strikes against agancies that look to do us harm; especially non-combatants. I question other recent foreign affair decisions.
I voiced displeasure about removing Troops from Syria and I disagree with the notion of pulling out of the ME in general.
With all that said: I am also against the overall practice of drone strikes.
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Im going try to be all for the war this time since being anti war has seemed so fruitless an unsatisfying.
Were gonna put a boot in their asses. Go troops.
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(01-03-2020, 02:17 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Qassem Suleimani was the head of a terrorist organization that had recently killed and were targeting American citizens.
One country's terrorist organization is another country's military. I am sure in some country's our military would be considered a terrorist group as we have launched strikes that have killed all sorts of civilians that the local government didn't agree with and we weren't at war with. In fact, Iran does label our entire military a terrorist group. The other issue here is he is acting on government issued orders, hence him being a government official. Blowing him up does nothing as someone else will step in because the government isn't just going to stop. Again, this is far different then Osama Bin Laden.
If someone blew up one of our generals in charge of middle eastern operations because we were planning to issue drone strikes on people from their country we disagreed with, we would call that an act of war.
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(01-03-2020, 02:17 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Qassem Suleimani was the head of a terrorist organization that had recently killed and were targeting American citizens.
I guess no one disputes that, or that his death is not a loss for the human race.
It's the implications that make this maybe a bit trickier than just reducing it to this guy's deeds and how he deserved what he had coming.
Would you be willing to go to war over him?
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