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US Department of Defense confirms it targeted/killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran's Quds Force, outside Baghdad Airport
- Thread starter poklane
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Huh, #2 in Iran foreign affairs, I may be underestimating who he is. Posting this to provide insight on Soleimani.
It's also factually wrong. Trump has congressional approval to do that under AUMF.
Pretty much all the Democrats believe that Obama should have had that power, their issue is not principled even on that dumb legalistic level, it's that Trump killed the wrong Bad Guy.
There's that, but on the other hand, the anti-war activism really subsided after the Bush years. With things like drone strikes, wars have morphed into things that can easily be ignored. People just accept the "war on terror" as something that's always gonna be there in the background. I find it hard to be optimistic.
Without looking at Wikipedia or something, I'm pretty sure the US is currently engaged in conflicts that I'm not even aware of, and that's just how it goes now.
And even then, I don't really know what a new anti-war movement would even do. Do people even have it in them anymore?
This. I read both books by Nate Fick and Evan Wright and the one universal was how much soldiers loved war but hated leadership.
Really great article about Suleimani
They're clearly not. Bernie doesn't both sides the assassination.
Drone warfare also removes any reported agency from US troops and there aren't US troop casualties to constantly fixate on and tally. People still have Obama blinders on and they've just transferred them to Biden.
You can say this was a rash and ill advised and even wreckless move but the more I think about it it is definitely calculated. One it lets high ranking Iranian officials know that the us has eyes on them and will not hesitate to pull the trigger, albeit when they are on foreign soil to skirt an all out attack on their homeland, two it lets Iran know even minor attacks on embassies will be met with deadly force, and three this has the added effect of offing an unpopular military figure who was I believe responsible for thousands of protestor deaths. In short: bold strategy cotton lets see how it works out for them.
Well the whole point is that the Executive should not be able to start a war that the public (as represented in Congress) does not want. Ideally there should be a very high bar for congressional approval of a war, we should default to "no".
The Iraq war showed us the bar wasn't that high. 9/11 also just finished breaking this country's ability to think rationally about these conflicts.
It's crazy to me how America can just get away with anything. Like shit it's 2020 and we still talking about extrajudicial assassination of another country's top military commander? Crazy shit.
It's hard to get people to care, because with drone strikes, you can't have anti-war rallying cries like "bring our troops home!". It's a LOT more abstract when you don't personally have family members and friends who have been deployed to wars overseas. At that point, your anti-war movement is reduced to people who oppose war on principle and not because of the personal investment.
Hard to deny that once again Bernie has the best messaging on this situation out of all the frontrunners lol
This. I read both books by Nate Fick and Evan Wright and the one universal was how much soldiers loved war but hated leadership.
lol yeah you get it
when you bully half the world into letting you set up military bases in their countries under the guise of protection treaties, they let you get away with anything
Imagine if Russia did something like this to Saudi Arabia or Israel
Imagine
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Gotta disagree with you Chikor on Soleimani, he sounds like one of the most powerful people in Iran and the Middle East, his death will be felt hard and not easily replaced.
Lord I can't believe Trump ordered him killed. One thing is for certain the lagging military approval rating for Trump is gonna jump up alot, Soleimani was in charge of opposing the U.S invasion forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
America is blessed with some of the best geography in the world and can get away with a lot of things. Being surrounded by 2 oceans is very useful for that.
You can think someone's the scum of the earth without justifying a unprovoked, illegal attack on a foreign leader, especially knowing it'll further escalate tensions.
You can't bomb countries into not hating you, you can scare them if you're strong and ruthless enough, but if you do it long enough eventually they will find a way to hurt you back.
This line of thinking can only lead to more deaths. Must we really re-learn the ugliest lessons of Colonialism again?
For real, have you ever thought about why there seem to be quite a lot of people in that part of the world that really really hate America?
It's not because they hate freedom, it's because America does shit like this all the fucking time.
The same justifications were used to remove Saddam. And we just made problems worse.
You can think people are bad people and NOT want to assassinate them for completely rational reasons like escalating a situation to the point of war.
They're not both sidesing it. They're countering the conservative talking point that dems are handwringing the death of a terrible person just because it was Trump that ordered it by acknowledging that he was a terrible person.
No I mean someone can be a horrible human being and you can not want to outright kill them.
There is nothing wrong with Biden and Warren saying he's a bad person. They condemned the assassination and escalation.
This.
This seems unrelated, no?
Those things take years to plan.
I remember back in 2002 when West Wing did a story arc on this where they did it and it gave the President a slow nervous breakdown. We get tweets of American flags and rah rah bullshit.
Not sure about that, Quds Force isn't responsible for domestic policing or security, Soleimani was in charge of Quds, but it is part of the IRGC which did the crackdown but I think the Iranian people know the difference so I'm not sure if that will go over how you think so.
It really doesn't.
And trying to attack "dems" for this is opportunistic BS especially when 90% of the party doesn't want this. Not calling you out dirrectly but I can already see these type of posts coming.
The idea of "Assassinating enemy of America" is normally consider as "heroic" act. Which what years of Hollywood has been teaching us
I will say that the non-Fox press already seems highly suspicious so far. I'm really hoping, though not necessarily hopeful, they've learned their lessons.
Yeah, this is one of those times where people have to be pragmatic about this. The first response should be about the human cost that this could leave not just on US troops, but more importantly Iranian citizens and citizens of the ME. Soleimani was an awful human being, but unfortunately for politicians who don't want to see us get into a senseless war, this isn't the time or place to bring that up since it only helps drum up war.
A large part of that likely had to do with it being the last US war fought by conscripts instead of purely recruits.
I'm honestly kinda surprised Ortega hasn't tried cozying up to the US, given that he's pretty much a right-winger at this point. But I guess the US will never forgive the Sandinistas, regardless of the actual politics of their leader.
you don't de escalate the situation with another nation by calling their guy you just killed a piece a shit
remember y'all: Iranians have twitter too! They can read just like us.
Yes they are.
This is the same cowardly nonsense Dems pulled leading to the Iraq war.
Where you preface everything you say by leading with the Republican taking points. So you legitimize their viewpoints and rationales while leaving the only dispute in the public consciousness your argument.
Bernie has the only correct message here.
But the even better message would be that we as America have no right to break international law and assassinate foreign heads of state. That in this case, doing so is simply escalating the probability of war and doing so without the consent of the American people.
I feel like you have to make it difficult to take the position you are stating, because of how easy it is for the side in favor of war to force Democrats to rally around the flag in the name of patriotism.
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