Iran Situation

[Bengalzona]

I remember being in basic training back in 1983. At morning formation, the drill sergeant brought in the newspaper and read the headline story. The Soviet Union had shot down a Korean Air Lines passenger plane. All 269 people on board, including U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald, were killed. He told us, "Y'all are just about out of here. Get ready, 'cuz your heading straight to war!" For a bunch of Army recruits isolated from the world at Fort Jackson, SC, at that time, we believed him.

It didn't go down that way, obviously. I don't believe the death of Soleimani will lead to war either. At least not one that Iran starts. With a empowered narcissist who thinks he is fulfilling the quatrains of Nostradamus (as defined by a 1980's TV show) leading the U.S., who knows?

For the record, Soleimani was a POS. Thousands of our troops were killed or injured in Iraq due to IED's designed and built with supplies from his group. Regardless of whether the troops should have been there in the first place (they shouldn't have been, IMO), this dude struck out against my brother and sister soldiers. No tears for his loss.

For your consideration. What if Soleimani was assassinated by a CIA or Mossad sniper outside of public view and with no one claiming responsibility? How would you feel abut his death in that circumstance?

Personally, I'm totally fine with that. There is no question as to motive. He was a POS and he was killed for being a POS.

All that said, casually violating other nations' territories and crowing about assassinations builds resentment that eventually comes back as backlash. In today's world, that backlash is represented by retributive ideology and terror attacks that will last decades. And that ideology will persist even if you remove the nation that is sponsoring it. Terror attacks like 9/11 don't come out of the blue. Like cancer, they are born out of acts like this and fester for years before coming to fruition.