US Politics: Nancy's Knock on the Senate Door

[The Last Storm]

14 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

That's...literally exactly the point I was making. 

It’s been a never ending game of cat and mouse since then. Wtf do they need deniability for? 

[Guest]

Why use proxies at all other than for deniability?

[Guest]

I'm literally living in my nightmare from the night Trump was elected when I thought "oh fuck, who is he going to get us in a war with first?"

I still think this was a massive political blunder on Trump's part and if this escalates any further (which it almost certainly will), then Trump will have lost the ability to control the media narrative. Republicans are already starting to divide over the appropriate response (the two biggest primetime Fox hosts are at loggerheads with each other on this issue already), and keeping the party united through fear has been his only real accomplishment to date.

But more people are going to have to die because the moron in the White House watched the protests at the embassy and just saw a giant blinking neon "BENGHAZI!!!" sign right next to the Panic Button (probably shortly followed by the weasley thought of how this would pull attention away from impeachment). But he wildly miscalculated and Iran knows it can inflict major political damage on him through relatively little effort, during an election year, no less.

[A True Kaniggit]

Has someone already posted the video? I'll post it again anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QdBPP7nMfI

It's just not that "there's always a tweet" it's also, "there's always a YouTube Clip". 

[Spockydog]

8 hours ago, The Last Storm said:

Qassem was labeled a terrorist by several countries because he, you know, committed acts of terrorism. 

One could argue that US foreign policy is nothing more than terrorism on a military-industrial scale.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

7 hours ago, The Last Storm said:

Soleimani was bent on destroying Israel and harming the US. He didn’t arm militias against countries Iran had differences with like the US did in Afghanistan against the USSR, as an example. He was next level.

What's the next level?  The US has repeatedly backed horrible murderous regimes around the world for the last 70 years, often just for cheap oil, but Soleimani is somehow worse?  Were all the US Generals involved in Iraq terrorists?  What does this 'next level' designation consist of?

 

*Ironically, Soleimani did provide the US with intelligence on the Taliban and Al-Queda post 9-11 but stopped once Bush II arbitrarily made Iran part of his Axis of Evil.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Trump just wants to outdo Obama taking out bin Laden. There is nothing profound in his decision regarding Suleimani.

Amazing how we ended up depending on the Iranians having a proportionate response (and hoping the US doesnt follow up with an irrational response). Actually not that amazing. The good news is that this whole kerfuffle has not helped Trump all that much domestically.

[The Last Storm]

41 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

What's the next level?  The US has repeatedly backed horrible murderous regimes around the world for the last 70 years, often just for cheap oil, but Soleimani is somehow worse?  Were all the US Generals involved in Iraq terrorists?  What does this 'next level' designation consist of?

 

*Ironically, Soleimani did provide the US with intelligence on the Taliban and Al-Queda post 9-11 but stopped once Bush II arbitrarily made Iran part of his Axis of Evil.

Next level is being actively involved with groups like Hezbollah. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

Just now, The Last Storm said:

Next level is being actively involved with groups like Hezbollah. 

How about the House of Saud?  Or Osama Bin Ladin?  

[Liffguard]

3 minutes ago, The Last Storm said:

Next level is being actively involved with groups like Hezbollah. 

The US (and UK, and French etc.) military and intelligence agencies have been heavily involved with groups like Hezbollah for many decades.

[The Last Storm]

6 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

How about the House of Saud?  Or Osama Bin Ladin?  

I referred to the US backing of Afghan militias against the USSR earlier. And your right, it’s a fine line between terrorist and freedom fighter depending on where your from.

but arming militias against the Invasion of their country and aiming to kill US/Israeli’s by any means is different.

[Gorn]

4 minutes ago, The Last Storm said:

Next level is being actively involved with groups like Hezbollah. 

Or groups like Nicaraguan Contras, Angolan UNITA, Afghan mujahedin, Cuban Alpha 66...

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Well, it looks like we have the terrain to determine what many of us have been asking ourselves. Here’s hoping that Trump the coward lives up to his name.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Well, it looks like we have the terrain to determine what many of us have been asking ourselves. Here’s hoping that Trump the coward lives up to his name.

A part of me thinks, Trump could look at Iran's response and think "they can't hurt us, no-one died. so whats stopping me?  We have nothing to fear from Iran"  thus he provokes them further.

 

I hope this does not happen.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

38 minutes ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

A part of me thinks, Trump could look at Iran's response and think "they can't hurt us, no-one died. so whats stopping me?  We have nothing to fear from Iran"  thus he provokes them further.

 

I hope this does not happen.

All signs seem to point, at least in the short term, that Trump is backing off. He’d be a fool to actually start a war with Iran. It would take the economy and that’s basically all he has to stand on at this point outside of reshaping the courts.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

Yeah he would be a fool and it does look like he's backing down.  I just have part of me that worries, because sometimes Trump does things that don't seem that sensible or cautious especially if his ego gets in the way.

 

[Maithanet]

Looks like a bullet dodged for the time being.  We'll just see what Iran's next moves are.  They have been waging a proxy campaign to get the US out of the Middle East and protest the sanctions for the past couple of years.  That campaign will definitely continue, and the next strike or two will likely take place before the elections. 

[Guest]

Trump has not backed off, nor will he. He is simply not escalating tensions yet (although he did say that further sanctions would be imposed).  This will exacerbate the situation in the Middle East, and Iran will strike much harder at U.S. targets through their proxies. When that happens is when we will know just how far these events will devolve.

E.g Homeland Security memo warning of near- to intermediate term cyberattacks and terrorist attacks.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Sometimes I just like to think about those small and not so small ironies of life.

Likesay. Who would've thought six years ago, that you would have to rely on Mitt Romney to save the world? Or that moment during the third (?) debate with Obama, when he called Russia the biggest threat to the security of the US. And how his party has decided to get into bed with Putin to get his stooge elected merely four years later. Of course Obama was laughing off Romney's assessment about Russia being the biggest threat present to the US. I wonder if would still laugh it off today.

Sorry for the rambling.

[Paladin of Ice]

8 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Sometimes I just like to think about those small and not so small ironies of life.

Likesay. Who would've thought six years ago, that you would have to rely on Mitt Romney to save the world? Or that moment during the third (?) debate with Obama, when he called Russia the biggest threat to the security of the US. And how his party has decided to get into bed with Putin to get his stooge elected merely four years later. Of course Obama was laughing off Romney's assessment about Russia being the biggest threat present to the US. I wonder if would still laugh it off today.

Sorry for the rambling.

*Sigh*
 

Romney’s statements got laughed at because his foreign policy team kept calling Russia the Soviet Union, and referring to Soviet era countries that no longer exist, like Czechoslovakia. Also things like saying that Syria was Iran’s route to the sea... which ignores that Iraq is between Iran and Syria and that Iran’s south sits directly on the Persian Gulf.

That said, everyone including Obama vastly underestimated Russia’s ability to manipulate democracies via social media and online conspiracies/disinformation, but something tells me that the guys who kept bringing up countries that hadn’t existed for 20 years didn’t see it coming either.