Rogue Nation Behavior.

[Haruo]

Once upon a time didn't we maintain a Rogue Nation list consisting of, what, Libya, Iran and North Korea? I wonder if we have now qualified. I mean, bombing a civilian airport in a more or less friendly country in order to kill a general of another country that we are not at war with?

[Sandy]

This is the proverbial cannon shooting at gnats. Remember the "Monica Missiles" that the Republicans scorned Clinton for firing into Afghanistan after the first Bin Laden attack on the WTC? Clinton at least realized Bin Laden was in Afghanistan though Republicans accused him of taking military action because he was being impeached. Now do the previous week's actions by the administration have a familiar ring? Then there's this--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ecqMwLjTqQ

Then there was the Trump comment that the embassy attack in Baghdad wouldn't be "another Benghazi." Of course it wouldn't. It's the most heavily armed embassy we have, in spite of his pullout of special services troops there are still plenty within a short distance for backup. The Iranian Sh'ia are just supporting their co-religionists in Baghdad and the power vacuum created by Trump's impulsive decision to throw the Kurds under the bus and get out gave them the opportunity to up their pressure and presence. Now it looks like Trump is going to throw the current Iraqi government under the bus as well.

War with Iran is still, as it always has been, a political dead end and highly unpopular. If you think the Iranians are afraid of the orange headed buffoon, guess again. They knew the US was getting out, they've seen the division between Trump and the European allies and they're playing that big time and they've seen how soft he has been on Kim Jong Un, who continues to build and test nuclear missiles right under Trump's nose.

[KeithE]

Good summary (but I don’t trust the US media entirely but certainly more than Trump or Pompeo)

Also includes US-Iran history since Trump withdrew from Iran Nuclear Deal.

If our country were truly Christian it would follow Jesus and turn the other cheek (and love our enemies). This will de-escalate this incipient retaliatory war faster than anything else.

[Sandy]

The Shi'ites are a majority in Iraq, but were ruled by a member of the Sunni minority under Saddam. He kept peace like most Islamic rulers do, through terror and force, but that's what they were used to. Then the US, a foreign power, invaded Iraq under several false pretenses and made a gigantic mess that combined with the gigantic mess next door in Syria to create the ISIS insurgency. With large parts of Iraq in ruins, the Shi'ite majority in the new government, put in place by elections, turns to the most powerful Shi'ite Islamic government in the region for help, since it seemed clear that the big foreigner who caused the trouble was pulling out. He got out of the nuclear treaty, that was a signal, then he pulled out to let the Turks have their way in Syria. They saw that he threw the Kurds into the fire. They figure they are on their own and their best bet against another devastating insurgency in the vacuum of what's been left behind is their Shi'ite co-religionists in Iran, who have been intriguing to get into Iraw for decades.

Yes, Soleimani was a terrorist who organized militias. That would be our perspective. It has cost American lives. But we are a foreign presence there and we are never going to be seen as a liberator, only as a destroyer. Fact is, Soleimani's militias couldn't have taken a single American life if we didn't have a military presence in Iraq. And there wouldn't have been an attack on our embassy in Baghdad to defend if we weren't still a military presence there. The Iraqis aren't a danger to the Kurds. Why are we still in Iraq?

What would happen in this country if Russia or China invaded, replaced our government with one sympathetic to them, bombed and burned 40% of the housing and infrastructure and then claimed to have "liberated" us? You think there might be a few militias form and use terror as a means of fighting back? They're not trying to take over the world and enforce Sharia law. They are just trying to get rid of foreign interference which has been devastating to them. One of the consequences of that is their motivation to build a nuclear weapon to balance what they see is an inequity in power that leaves them at a disadvantage.

One of the comments I saw today on Facebook from someone who has numerous references to their Christian faith on their site suggested that we just drop a few well placed nukes here and there and then say that's what you get for messing with Trump.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/03/ki ... ump-fault/

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

Most of the rest of the world is certainly leaning toward thinking that we are. Our former European allies have, for the most part, come to the conclusion that they no longer have the support of the United States and are arranging their foreign affairs to deal with the possibility that they have suddenly become the world's defenders of freedom and liberty from tyranny. They have correctly concluded that Trump's inexplicable sudden reversals and about-faces of position and his plethora of lies to explain it all away are the results of the jerks and tweeks of the strings being pulled by Vladimir Putin. My prayers are already going out to the military families who are seeing yet another pointless deployment of their family members to defend interests that no one has yet defined.

We can try to hold off and tell the world that an election is coming and he'll be gone but we can't explain how it was that a man with a lifelong record as a cheap, two bit con artist who also happens to be a sexual predator could even get in the lineup of a major party's nomination for the presidency, much less get elected.

[Joseph Patrick]

From Gerry Milligan,
The trump lovers are applauding the assassination of the Iranian general. While I have a bit of question if he was as bad as our trump lovers say he was, I would like to see some definitive truth about it. As a grandfather to three young men who could very easily be drafted (I know that the draft was done away with, but our draft-dodging CIC thinks he can do whatever, with impunity), and for what? Bogus claims to get our thoughts away from the fact that he was impeached? Or, as he asserted in 2011, that President Obama would start a war with Iran to get re-elected? Sounds familiar to me. But, if he really is a Christian (as his sycophants say) then when will we see from him, living out John 8:32And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free Mister draft-dodger, why are you stonewalling the truth?

[Haruo]

Trump's a Georgian, Soleimani's Sherman. POV is critical.

[Sandy]

Protesters attacked our embassy in Baghdad. All we really needed to do was send in the marines who were just around the corner and it was over. Well, not quite. Trump is obsessed with outdoing Obama, saw an opportunity to change the headlines from impeachment and try to do something bigger than Bin Laden. He could care less about the cost, or how strategically bad the move was. He's no military expert and the decent people he once had in his administration are gone because they couldn't stand the guy and wanted to keep their integrity and they're gone, replaced by swamp creatures. We are in trouble and will pay a completely unnecessary cost in lives lost. He can holler "no more Benghazis" all he wants to, we lost four lives there, we're going to lose thousands because of this buffoon's lack of sane judgement and common sense. On top of it he tweets intentions that would make him a war criminal. I will insist that we are not a rogue nation just because we have a President who is an insane idiot.

There would be no Iranian-supported militia, and no American deaths if there were no American troops in Iraq. Good grief, when is that occupation going to end? We've had an uninvited and unwelcome military presence in Iraq three times as long as the Nazis occupied Europe and the Western Soviet Union in WW2. Trump hollered about not getting out of Iraq without making sure they paid for the protection we have provided. But it was protection that Iraq never asked for and never wanted. We invaded their country on false pretenses. There was no Al Qaida and no weapons of mass destruction. We destroyed cities and towns, transportation, communications and utilities infrastructure, manufacturing and agricultural business (I think we were pretty careful with oil production though) brought our army in and set up our form of constitutional republic which, as predicted, turned into a majority Shi'ite government sympathetic to their co-religionists in Iran. Doing that set off a Sunni insurgency, ISIS, that caused another war, destroyed more cities and towns and infrastructure, all the way into the Northern part of the country where the Kurds lived, placing half of the Shi'ite population under oppressive Sunni rule once again. Next door, in Iran, is a powerful Islamic regime led by religious leaders of the same brand of Islam as a majority of Iraqis, why are we surprised that, in their distress, after the United States occupation of twenty years that has brought nothing but hardship, they have turned to Iran for help and they want us out? And now they've seen our insane President blabber and mutter and throw the Syrian Kurds under the bus after they turned out to be the only viable militia force involved in defeating the ISIS insurgency. There is no clear American interest involved except, of course, keeping Iran from enriching uranium and building a nuclear bomb which Trump also threw out the window in spite of the fact that it was working and the Iranians were abiding by its terms. Now, thanks to the orange headed buffoon, they're back to enriching uranium to build a bomb.

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

I'm not generally a huge fan of Rand Paul's, but I thought this prophetic (note the dates) exchange between Paul and Pompeio, orchestrated by the algorithmic demons at Google, was priceless:

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

I appreciate all the prayers for peace posts that people are putting up on Facebook. But I believe God gives us free will. If we willing vote someone into the White House with no ethics or morals and he then takes us into an unnecessary war, what are we expecting God to do?

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

If it does nothing else, praying certainly reduces the tension and stress that comes with wondering what's going to happen.

There is a perspective that I see in a lot of social media posts that the lives of people who live in the Middle East aren't equal to the lives of Americans. It's OK to achieve "American ends" by wiping out Muslims. And it seems like the term "American interests" justifies all of the murder and violence. It's about what we want, so these people are in our way, even though they are in their own sovereign country and we are on their soil, not the other way around. The number of Iraqi dead from our initial invasion in 2003 up to now is in the hundreds of thousands, a devastating and irreplaceable loss of human resources. We've lost a few hundred of our military personnel and a handful of civilian deaths, mainly journalists and as far as I can tell, one contractor. That's not an equal exchange. And what is it that we are doing there anyway?

Seems a bit inconsistent to spend millions of dollars sending dollar store junk to kids overseas for Christmas and then threatening to bomb the heck out of them for no reason except they're Muslim and they're getting impatient with American military occupation.

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

Yes, that Utah GOP senator's reaction was livid, he called it unconstitutional and worse.

[Dave Roberts]

Once again, Trump is the arsonist who lights the fire and then wants credit for putting it out. The danger in this is that one day hw will light the fire and won't be able to extinguish it. Suddenly the world will be aflame. He is a grave an imminent danger.

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]