The US just assassinated...

gcomeau wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:I don't want to fight the quote structure, so I will just respond in sequence.

Killing General Sulinami is somewhat similar to killing Bin Laden. Both assasinations were morally correct. However; both assassination provoked consequences. One should consider consequences and evaluate them in context of the future threat.

Oh ffs.

That's like saying "dropping this rock in the ocean is somewhat similar to dropping that asteroid in the ocean. They're both solid objects and they're both landing in water and making a splash."

Ummmm... ok. Technically correct while masking the most critical difference. SCALE.

Assassinating a globally wanted criminal terrorist with no official state ties is a UNIVERSE different than assassinating a top Iranian government official, and so are the consequences. Yes it angered the Pakistanis but there was effectively ZERO chance it was going to provoke a shooting war with Pakistan since officially they were in support of the find and kill Bin Laden plan.

Fortunately it appears someone managed to sit on Trump last night and get him to not re-escalate things further this morning, hopefully bringing about what was probably the best case outcome of this entire situation Trump deliberately provoked. The Iranians openly bombarding US military positions and threatening the US with far more severe and widespread consequences if they responded... and the US backing down and letting them walk away.

Which is going to be a propaganda bonanza for Iran all over the region... and again, that was the BEST CASE outcome of what Mr. Very Stable Genius caused to happen. Assuming Trump doesn't do a 180, enter full tantrum mode, and still do something to make it even worse next.

The consequence of the assination was the election of a far more militant islamicist government that seems intent on provoking a nuclear war with India.

Oh please, the Pakistani elections were hardly a one issue event.

However; it was possible to kill Bin Laden without provoking those consequences. If President Obama was convinced that Pakistan's President would not act if the HE PERSONALLY revealed Bin Laden's whereabouts to him, a B-1 dropping a MOAB would have whereabouts far more discrete.

And potentially have never given positive confirmation Bin Laden was in fact on site and killed. Or that they didn't just oopsie bomb a bunch of civilians into charcoal.

You know, minor little considerations like that.

In the case of General Sulinami, he was an active, continuing threat. He was provoking a low intensity civil war within Iraq to increase Iranian influence with the obvious goal of domination. The vote by the Iraqi parliament when only Shia were attending without Sunni or Kurds dramatizes Iranian influence. Do you really think that the Suni and Kurds were outraged by his assination?

Killing Sulinami obviously pissed off the Iranians. They were already pissed off. Everyone on this board wants to blame Trump for the Iranians breaching the treaty.

Ahem. The Iranians DIDN'T breach the treaty. Trump did. You have been told this repeatedly. So yes, he gets the blame for the thing he did.

The capabilities that they are now revealing indicate that they were building the infrastructure to mass produce advanced centrifuges BEFORE Trump withdrew from the Treaty.

Which was permitted under the treaty. Again, as has already been explained to you. What the treaty put a lockdown on was enrichment beyond certain limits, which they were abiding by until Trump blew everything up with his typical diplomacy-by-tantrum-and-chest-thumping approach.

Iran was going to go nuclear just like Pakistan and North Korea.

Possibly at some date in the far future if negotiations over the next over 10 years of the deal failed to reach an understanding that extended the nuclear framework.

Trump decided, "hey, let's just skip those ten plus years the deal bought everyone, scrap all diplomacy, and provoke them into abandoning all nuclear restraints today!"

Yeah, that made things better.

Trump MIGHT be able to stop Iran from getting nukes, but probably can not. A nuclear armed Iran is far more problematic if Iran controls Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Too bad Trump has been actively handing them influence in all of the above areas his entire presidency. Which you were cheerleading up until this as I recall. So, so happy that you thought Trump was getting the US out of there. You had an entire thread devoted to how happy you were about it that is still sitting here on the front page of this forum.

"ffs" =?

You are correct that there is a legal difference between assisinating the leader of a small, independent terorist organization that is almost universally recognized as a criminal and assasinating a high ranking official of a foreign state who overseas a global terrorism network that is almost a sovereign state in its own right. Trump just redefined the legal realities by communicating to the entire world that if you are the leader of a terrorist organization that kills Americans, President Trump doesn't give a flying fuck if your are a high ranking government official of a soveign state, he will kill you. It is reasonable to presume that if you piss Trump off enough, Trump will kill your associates in your government, anyone who looks like you, and may be even kill your dog. This results in deterence.

Yes, I have been cheer leading Trump's withdrawal from the Middle East. I still do. However; the missile attack on the Saudi oil processing facility demonstrated that the Saudis were far more vulnerable than presumed. It is in the US interest for their to be a prolonged war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, not a rapid Iranian victory. It also might be in the US interest to delay this warr to pressure China which is utterly dependant on Persian Gulf oil. This Saudi vulnerability is because of the peculiar Saudi work ethic. The Saudis don't have a work ethic. Trump temporarily deployed US troops to run the Saudi air defenses while the Saudis aggreegated their fecal matter. The Saudis demonstrated their gratitude by going on a shooting spree at a US Naval base. Trump reverted to Plan C which is to get US troops the HELL out of the ME even though the Saudis don't have their shit together. President Trump can and will ensure that the upcoming war between the Iranians and the lazy and grossly incompetent Saudis is a stalemate not by helping the Saudis but by periodically sending in US air power to sodomize the Iranians. The Iranians were to stupid to allow the US to withdraw without messing with us. Trump just explained to the Iranians the new realities. If you don't want your asses kicked, including the assess of your highest ranking government officials, don't mess with us.

As usual, you spout your usual drivel about how wonderful the nuclear agreement with Iran is. What you are to stupid to understand is that by not only developing far more advanced gas centrifuges but tooling up to mass produce these new gas centrifuges years before the deal is supposed to expire, the Iranians demonstrated an unambiguous intention to break out of the treaty years before the treaty expires. This occurred when it was expected that Hillary rather than Trump would become POTUS.


I also support Trump explaining to the Iranians that this effort to withdraw is not a license to kill Americans or invade our embassies. Trump temporarily reinforced US forces in the Middle East so as to conduct

Imaginos1892 wrote:Where is there left for it to escalate to? Iran declared war on the U.S. in 1979, and remains at war with us today. They never un-declared war; we've just been ignoring it.

Now, explain why Iran did that?

If you can't, let me explain:

Iran was once upon a time a parliamentary democracy until the British and the USA decided that Iran's oil-fields and the money they brought in was "bad" for Iran, since BP thought so. They toppled Mohamed Mossadegh and his government and then they installed a monarch with absolute power, his name was Mohammad Reza Pahlavi - more commonly known as the Shah of Iran. He ran a police state where any dissent where brutally beat down and people disappeared into secret prisons, and this continued for 2 generations.

Are you somehow surprised the Iranians hate the USA? They manufactured this situation themselves and are to blame for a majority of the current problems in the region.

How about owning up to the fucking mess the USA and the British made in their shortsighted quest in helping their domestic oil-companies.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:"ffs" =?

For fuck's sake

You are correct that there is a legal difference between assisinating the leader of a small, independent terorist organization that is almost universally recognized as a criminal and assasinating a high ranking official of a foreign state who overseas a global terrorism network that is almost a sovereign state in its own right. Trump just redefined the legal realities by communicating to the entire world that if you are the leader of a terrorist organization that kills Americans, President Trump doesn't give a flying fuck if your are a high ranking government official of a soveign state, he will kill you.

You can't "redefine legal realities" by fiat proclamation.

It is reasonable to presume that if you piss Trump off enough, Trump will kill your associates in your government, anyone who looks like you, and may be even kill your dog. This results in deterence.

The kind of "deterrence" where the "deterred" country bombards bases housing US troops with ballistic missiles, threatens the US with far more severe action if they dare retaliate, and then Trump publicly backs down and the "deterred" country takes a propaganda victory lap with increased standing all over the middle east?

That kind of "deterrence"?

Yes, I have been cheer leading Trump's withdrawal from the Middle East. I still do.

His fictional withdrawal. He has been steadily handing over influence in the region through his series of idiotic blunders but the troops never seem to come back. They just get shuffled around.

However; the missile attack on the Saudi oil processing facility demonstrated that the Saudis were far more vulnerable than presumed.

Presumed by WHO? EVERYONE knew about the Iranian missile capability. Except maybe Trump, who lacks the attention span to listen to a damn briefing.

It is in the US interest for their to be a prolonged war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, not a rapid Iranian victory.

You cannot seriously be trying to make an argument that Trump is engaged in some 3 dimensional chess strategy to incite a perfectly balanced prolonged shooting war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. What planet are you posting from?

<snip pointless baseless rambling about the Saudi's work ethic>

Trump reverted to Plan C which is to get US troops the HELL out of the ME even though the Saudis don't have their shit together.

Trump hasn't brought troops back from the ME his ENTIRE PRESIDENCY. What the hell are you talking about??? He didn't bring them home when he betrayed the Kurds, he just sent them somewhere else nearby, and he isn't bringing them home now. He's INCREASING troop numbers in the Middle East. And that isn't a one off response to this incident because he had already increased them before this earlier in 2019. And when the Iraqis announced they wanted US troops out after the Solemeini assassination Trump threw a tantrum and refused and started ranting about the Iraqi's paying the US back for the air bases the Iraqi's built in the first place (because Trump is a fucking idiot who doesn't even know the US didn't build those air bases).

President Trump can and will ensure that the upcoming war between the Iranians and the lazy and grossly incompetent Saudis is a stalemate not by helping the Saudis but by periodically sending in US air power to sodomize the Iranians.

How do you even come up with these ridiculous fantasies you spin as some kind of factual proclamation about the future?

As usual, you spout your usual drivel about how wonderful the nuclear agreement with Iran is. What you are to stupid to understand is that by not only developing far more advanced gas centrifuges but tooling up to mass produce these new gas centrifuges years before the deal is supposed to expire, the Iranians demonstrated an unambiguous intention to break out of the treaty years before the treaty expires. This occurred when it was expected that Hillary rather than Trump would become POTUS.

As has been explained to you REPEATEDLY we all know about the damn centrifuges. You are not giving us some kind of new amazing information you have discovered through your amazing research skills that we are just stupidly failing to grasp.

The. Deal. Allowed. Their. Development. You. Doofus.

Want to know a good reason why? Because it would be an exercise in futility trying to prevent it, as opposed to construction a site to refine weapons grade uranium, the mechanical engineering required to work on improved centrifuge designs can be preformed pretty much *anywhere* you want to set up the facilities for it and be done inconspicuously. You don't need all those rather conspicuous safeguards surrounding the handling of highly radioactive material to work on centrifuge designs, you just need a research team. So instead the deal regulated the critical component it actually MADE SENSE to regulate. The one that could be effectively monitored. The enrichment of the damn fissile material.

And one more time. The Iranians KEPT THEIR END of the bargain. TRUMP broke the deal. And HE earned all the blame for doing it.

gcomeau wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:"ffs" =?

For fuck's sake

You are correct that there is a legal difference between assisinating the leader of a small, independent terorist organization that is almost universally recognized as a criminal and assasinating a high ranking official of a foreign state who overseas a global terrorism network that is almost a sovereign state in its own right. Trump just redefined the legal realities by communicating to the entire world that if you are the leader of a terrorist organization that kills Americans, President Trump doesn't give a flying fuck if your are a high ranking government official of a soveign state, he will kill you.

You can't "redefine legal realities" by fiat proclamation.

It is reasonable to presume that if you piss Trump off enough, Trump will kill your associates in your government, anyone who looks like you, and may be even kill your dog. This results in deterence.

The kind of "deterrence" where the "deterred" country bombards bases housing US troops with ballistic missiles, threatens the US with far more severe action if they dare retaliate, and then Trump publicly backs down and the "deterred" country takes a propaganda victory lap with increased standing all over the middle east?

That kind of "deterrence"?

Yes, I have been cheer leading Trump's withdrawal from the Middle East. I still do.

His fictional withdrawal. He has been steadily handing over influence in the region through his series of idiotic blunders but the troops never seem to come back. They just get shuffled around.

However; the missile attack on the Saudi oil processing facility demonstrated that the Saudis were far more vulnerable than presumed.

Presumed by WHO? EVERYONE knew about the Iranian missile capability. Except maybe Trump, who lacks the attention span to listen to a damn briefing.

It is in the US interest for their to be a prolonged war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, not a rapid Iranian victory.

You cannot seriously be trying to make an argument that Trump is engaged in some 3 dimensional chess strategy to incite a perfectly balanced prolonged shooting war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. What planet are you posting from?

<snip pointless baseless rambling about the Saudi's work ethic>

Trump reverted to Plan C which is to get US troops the HELL out of the ME even though the Saudis don't have their shit together.

Trump hasn't brought troops back from the ME his ENTIRE PRESIDENCY. What the hell are you talking about??? He didn't bring them home when he betrayed the Kurds, he just sent them somewhere else nearby, and he isn't bringing them home now. He's INCREASING troop numbers in the Middle East. And that isn't a one off response to this incident because he had already increased them before this earlier in 2019. And when the Iraqis announced they wanted US troops out after the Solemeini assassination Trump threw a tantrum and refused and started ranting about the Iraqi's paying the US back for the air bases the Iraqi's built in the first place (because Trump is a fucking idiot who doesn't even know the US didn't build those air bases).

President Trump can and will ensure that the upcoming war between the Iranians and the lazy and grossly incompetent Saudis is a stalemate not by helping the Saudis but by periodically sending in US air power to sodomize the Iranians.

How do you even come up with these ridiculous fantasies you spin as some kind of factual proclamation about the future?

As usual, you spout your usual drivel about how wonderful the nuclear agreement with Iran is. What you are to stupid to understand is that by not only developing far more advanced gas centrifuges but tooling up to mass produce these new gas centrifuges years before the deal is supposed to expire, the Iranians demonstrated an unambiguous intention to break out of the treaty years before the treaty expires. This occurred when it was expected that Hillary rather than Trump would become POTUS.

As has been explained to you REPEATEDLY we all know about the damn centrifuges. You are not giving us some kind of new amazing information you have discovered through your amazing research skills that we are just stupidly failing to grasp.

The. Deal. Allowed. Their. Development. You. Doofus.

Want to know a good reason why? Because it would be an exercise in futility trying to prevent it, as opposed to construction a site to refine weapons grade uranium, the mechanical engineering required to work on improved centrifuge designs can be preformed pretty much *anywhere* you want to set up the facilities for it and be done inconspicuously. You don't need all those rather conspicuous safeguards surrounding the handling of highly radioactive material to work on centrifuge designs, you just need a research team. So instead the deal regulated the critical component it actually MADE SENSE to regulate. The one that could be effectively monitored. The enrichment of the damn fissile material.

And one more time. The Iranians KEPT THEIR END of the bargain. TRUMP broke the deal. And HE earned all the blame for doing it.

You reply with more of your ignorant, insulting drivel.

Just for a start, neither natural Uranium, Enriched Uranium, or Depleted Uranium are highly radioactive. The Iranians could set them up covertly in perfectly normal warehouse with minimal risk of detection.

I find it interesting that aside from Iranians, the majority of the fatalities on the downed Ukrainian airliner were allegedly Canadians. What is going on? Are Canadians frequent sex tourists in Iran because they have a fetish for Pilous, Persian Pussycat?

Joat42 wrote:Iran was once upon a time a parliamentary democracy until the British and the USA decided that Iran's oil-fields and the money they brought in was "bad" for Iran, since BP thought so. They toppled Mohamed Mossadegh and his government and then they installed a monarch with absolute power, his name was Mohammad Reza Pahlavi - more commonly known as the Shah of Iran. He ran a police state where any dissent where brutally beat down and people disappeared into secret prisons, and this continued for 2 generations.

You don't have to tell me how bad Franklin D. Roosevelt was; I already know. Putting 200,000 American citizens in concentration camps was far from the worst thing he did. The second most 'progressive' President we've ever had, fond of Mussolini, and fascism in general.
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Gentlemen! You can't fight in here — this is the War Room!

TFLYTSNBN wrote:I find it interesting that aside from Iranians, the majority of the fatalities on the downed Ukrainian airliner were allegedly Canadians. What is going on? Are Canadians frequent sex tourists in Iran because they have a fetish for Pilous, Persian Pussycat?

You know, not everyone is a sex-tourist. We all know of your self avowed predilections regarding sex-tourism so I wouldn't be surprised if you are talking from personal experience

Also, the majority of fatalities where actually Iranians.

I'm also wondering how big of an asshole do you have to be, to make tasteless jokes about people who died in a horrific crash?

TFLYTSNBN wrote:You reply with more of your ignorant, insulting drivel.

Just for a start, neither natural Uranium, Enriched Uranium, or Depleted Uranium are highly radioactive. The Iranians could set them up covertly in perfectly normal warehouse with minimal risk of detection.

Store, yes.

Process and enrich, no.

I find it interesting that aside from Iranians, the majority of the fatalities on the downed Ukrainian airliner were allegedly Canadians. What is going on? Are Canadians frequent sex tourists in Iran because they have a fetish for Pilous, Persian Pussycat?

1. It was a flight that had connections back to Canada. 138 of the 176 total passengers were en route to Canada.
2. There was a wedding party returning from a wedding, people returning from visiting family, people making connections back from vacations... several of the dead were children.
3. What the actual fuck is wrong with you?

gcomeau, some people do have a problem making an emotional connection, whether they are autistic or sociopaths. The Scandinavian noir shows of The Bridge and The Tunnel have a female detective played by a great actress who is totally emotionally dead pan.
A certain Nameless Fly was once banned from these pages because he responded to a perceived one line minor slight from me with a full page rant (full of expletives) starting off wishing me a horrible death then progressively ramping up through my family then my entire country to the ninth generation.
The before mentioned actress plays a part where the detective has a set of responses that she has learnt to be appropriate in different circumstances. Occasionally she gets it wrong in sick but hilarious ways.
David Drake has a character called Tovera in one of his series that is similar.

The emotive tone of these posts need to be toned down. You should be able to make your point without the vulgarity and the insults. One thing that we all need to remember that no matter how compelling our point might be, there are going to be those who disagree. That disagreement doesn't make then evil, or even necessarily wrong...

If this gets too far out of hand, Duuck will shut it down... and rightly so

Don

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gcomeau wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:You reply with more of your ignorant, insulting drivel.

Just for a start, neither natural Uranium, Enriched Uranium, or Depleted Uranium are highly radioactive. The Iranians could set them up covertly in perfectly normal warehouse with minimal risk of detection.

Store, yes.

Process and enrich, no.

Why not process and enrich covertly?
The power requirements are consistent with medium manufacturing.
Neither Uranium-238 or U-235 are highly radioactive. Unless the centrifuges are leaking Uranium-Hexaflouride like a sieve and competent inspectors are in the area taking environmental samples, then the operation is difficult to detect.

This is the salient fact. Gas centrifuge isotope separation is a game changing technology that not only reduced the cost of producing fissile material by an order of magnitude, it makes it possible to do so covertly.

I find it interesting that aside from Iranians, the majority of the fatalities on the downed Ukrainian airliner were allegedly Canadians. What is going on? Are Canadians frequent sex tourists in Iran because they have a fetish for Pilous, Persian Pussycat?

1. It was a flight that had connections back to Canada. 138 of the 176 total passengers were en route to Canada.
2. There was a wedding party returning from a wedding, people returning from visiting family, people making connections back from vacations... several of the dead were children.
3. What the actual fuck is wrong with you?

I indulge in crude humor in order to make a point about how sanctions are not working. More importantly, what the Hell were the Iranians thinking continuing commercial flights so soon after a missile strike that was reasonably expected to provoke a counter strike?