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2020 US/Iranian Crisis

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  • Originally posted by ambidex View Post
    What happened you dropped your balls?

    I am all eyes to read you long detailed posts and answers every line.
    Why would you want to read what a "retard Moderator" has to say? Fuck off and find someplace else to spread your delusions.
    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

    Comment


    • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
      Not if the threat isn't credible. And it isn't credible, despite what you and Ambidex think. Iran knows goddamn good and well that the US isn't going to target civilian and cultural sites and even if they were under the delusion that it might, the Pentagon slammed just the door on that idea, hard.

      Donald Trump is an irrational narcissistic sociopath that has given ample and repeated demonstrations through his words and actions that he doesn't give two shits about committing war crimes, atrocities or following any laws or rules that prevent him from stroking his ego or enriching his bank account. Fortunately for the U.S. and the rest of the world, there are still some brakes on his insanity. So for fuck's sake, drop the bullshit about the "deterrent" value of his batshit crazy threats. All Trump is doing is destroying what's left of America's image around the world.
      Not dropping it and it isn't BS if you don't comprehend it.

      Bolded part is precisely why Trump is credible when he says it. Your former presidents ? not so much : )

      You don't buy deterrence, that's ok i've heard loads of people argue it cannot be proven.

      But 5k marines surrounded in Berlin by the Soviets yet they won't take them shows that deterrence does work

      He has mentioned cultural sites because these days he cannot threaten them with nukes.

      In the cold war days these kinds of threat were not so subtly made to leaders, indirectly encouraging many to go down the nuke path until the P5 cut the crap.

      Your president will do whatever it takes to keep country, interests & people safe.

      Who exactly is pentagon 'slamming the door' supposed to convince ? Americans ?

      Because it means exactly squat to the Iranians. This guy tossed a deal that your previous president fought hard to win.

      Let the Iranians just try and second guess him ; )

      Remember what i said in the other thread. The man is unpredictable, that is an asset in this scenario.

      Look, i have a stronger interest in there not being a shooting war going on here. It affects me a great deal more than you.

      Your president has played a strong first hand.

      That gives me confidence this conflict stays low intensity and under thresholds of any further escalation.

      Meanwhile your guys work the mullahs over and start creating off ramps.
      Last edited by Double Edge; 08 Jan 20,, 01:02.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
        Not dropping it and it isn't BS if you don't comprehend it.
        What's to comprehend about Donald Trump casually threatening atrocities upon Iran?

        Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
        Bolded part is precisely why Trump is credible when he says it. Your former presidents ? not so much : )
        As I've said repeatedly (and uselessly, as you don't bother to read prior posts), no Pentagon planner or field commander is going to obey orders from Trump to commit war crimes.

        Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
        You don't buy deterrence, that's ok i've heard loads of people argue it cannot be proven.
        I never said I didn't buy deterrence. I said If The Threat Isn't CREDIBLE. Threats by an American president to commit war crimes are not credible because the American Armed Forces are not about to fulfill such unlawful orders.

        Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
        He has mentioned cultural sites because these days he cannot threaten them with nukes.
        If you say so.

        Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
        Your president will do whatever it takes to keep country, interests & people safe.
        No, Donald Trump will do whatever it takes to keep his business interests & ego satiated and safe. The rest of the country doesn't mean a fucking thing to him unless those requirements just happen to converge.

        Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
        Who exactly is pentagon 'slamming the door' supposed to convince ? Americans ?
        It's supposed to reassure people around the world, including Americans, that the rest of the United States hasn't gone completely insane, unlike the lunatic in the White House.

        Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
        Remember what i said in the other thread. The man is unpredictable, that is an asset in this scenario.
        Sure, right up until that unpredictability backs the Iranians into a corner and they feel they have no choice but to "go for broke".

        Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
        Your president has played a strong first hand.

        That gives me confidence this conflict stays low intensity and under thresholds of any further escalation.
        It will stay low intensity only because the Iranians won't want it a full-blown conventional war with the United States. That has nothing to do with Donald Trump waving his tiny dick around on Twitter.
        “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

        Comment


        • Iran launches missiles at US military facilities in Iraq

          Multiple missiles have been launched at Iraq from Iran targeting American military facilities, according to a U.S. official.

          "This morning, courageous fighters of the IRGC's Air Force launched a successful operation called Operation Martyr Soleimani, with the code 'Oh Zahra' by firing tens of ground-to-ground missiles at the base of the terrorist and invasive U.S. forces named Ain Al Asad," the country's state-run news outlet ISNA reported.

          A U.S. official confirms to ABC News that ballistic missiles have been fired from inside Iran at multiple U.S. military facilities inside Iraq on Wednesday morning, local time. The facilities include Erbil in northern Iraq and Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq, the official said.

          A Defense Department statement said they are still working on initial damage assessments.

          "In recent days and in response to Iranian threats and actions, the Department of Defense has taken all appropriate measures to safeguard our personnel and partners. These bases have been on high alert due to indications that the Iranian regime planned to attack our forces and interests in the region," Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement.

          "As we evaluate the situation and our response, we will take all necessary measures to protect and defend U.S. personnel, partners, and allies in the region."

          A U.S. official confirmed that as of 7 p.m. Eastern time missiles were still inbound from Iran to multiple locations inside Iraq, specifically Erbil and Al Assad.

          "We are aware of the reports of attacks on US facilities in Iraq," according to a statement from White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. "The President has been briefed and is monitoring the situation closely and consulting with his national security team."

          The attack comes days after the U.S. killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a drone attack in Iraq.

          The recent developments were likely to spark fear of a U.S. war with Iran. Iranian leaders have vowed revenge for the American airstrike against Soleimani, who the U.S. has blamed for the recent death of an American military contractor.

          Trump and his top aides defended the drone killing of Soleimani, insisting that he was planning an attack on U.S. service members and diplomats.

          "He was planning a very big attack and a very bad attack, for us, and for other people," Trump told reporters on Tuesday afternoon prior to the missile attack on U.S. sites in Iraq.

          "He was a monster," Trump later added of Soleimani.

          Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in a briefing at the Pentagon on Tuesday afternoon that the U.S. was ready to retaliate for any attack launched by Iran.

          "To our partners and allies and to the Iran regime, I would like to say we are not looking to start a war with Iran. But we are prepared to finish one," Esper said. "As I've told my many colleagues, as I spoke to them over the last few days, what we like to see is the situation be de-escalated and for Iran to sit down with us to begin a discussion about a better way ahead."
          _____________

          And here I thought they were going to limit themselves to proxies/insurgent retaliation.

          Things just got a little more exciting.
          “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

          Comment


          • Trump Walks Back Threat To Commit War Crimes Against Iran's Cultural Sites

            President Donald Trump reluctantly walked back his threats to commit a war crime by launching airstrikes against Iranian cultural sites, telling reporters on Tuesday that he was “OK with” obeying international law on the matter while also expressing his petulance.

            “We are, according to various laws, supposed to be very careful with their cultural heritage. And you know what, if that’s what the law is, I like to obey the law,” Trump said. “But think of it: They kill our people, they blow up our people and then we have to be very gentle with their cultural institutions.”

            Trump vowed over the weekend to target 52 locations, including some “important to Iran & the Iranian culture,” if Tehran retaliated against the U.S. for assassinating Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Trump then defended his stance on Sunday, effectively doubling down on his threat to commit war crimes.

            Bombing cultural sites would violate multiple international treaties. Legal experts, world leaders and cultural heritage organizations all harshly condemned Trump’s threats, and top administration officials tried to water down and deflect from the statements.

            Although Trump appears to have backed off somewhat following the backlash, his remarks were in keeping with a history of flagrant disregard for human rights and international law ― often describing them as a hindrance to his own authority.

            During the 2016 presidential election campaign he criticized the Geneva Conventions as a “problem” in the fight against ISIS and complained that the U.S. wasn’t allowed to use torture. He also repeatedly spread a debunked myth about a World War I-era U.S. general in the Philippines killing Muslim prisoners with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood, which would also constitute a war crime.

            Trump continued his disregard for international law and human rights as president, recently pardoning Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher after he was accused of war crimes and convicted of posing for photos with the corpse of a dead ISIS detainee. (Gallagher was acquitted of other charges that included shooting unarmed civilians.) Trump has praised some of the world’s worst rights abusers, while his administration broadly deemphasized and undermined human rights as an international issue.

            What Trump threatened against Iran is a clear-cut example of a war crime and in violation of international treaties that the U.S. has signed on to, according to Sara Bronin, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. The United States is party to the Hague Convention of 1907, which dictates that “all necessary steps must be taken” to protect sites of cultural, scientific, historic and religious importance.

            The Obama administration in 2009 also ratified the Hague Cultural Property Convention of 1954 which similarly prohibits attacks and which destroying Iran’s cultural sites would violate. Article 53 of the Geneva Convention additionally forbids destruction of historic monuments and places of worship, expressly prohibiting making them the subject of reprisal attacks, while the U.S. Defense Department Law of War Manual bars targeting cultural property. The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution in 2017 vowing to protect the world’s cultural heritage from conflict.

            The U.S. interest in preserving cultural sites and important historical artifacts during war goes back to at least the Civil War era, when the Lincoln administration produced the Lieber Code ordering that “classical works of art, libraries, scientific collections, or precious instruments” should be protected from harm.

            U.S. rhetoric on protecting cultural heritage hasn’t always matched its actions, which have included bombing Vietcong-occupied historic temples during the Vietnam War and in recent years supporting Saudi Arabia’s devastation of Yemen’s ancient heritage sites. But experts say that Trump’s threats were unique in their explicit contempt for international norms around cultural property, as well as nonsensical from a policy standpoint.

            Trump’s threats to attack cultural sites are “not useful strategically, even if what you’re trying to do is put American foreign policy interests above all else,” said Christine Cheng, associate professor in the department of war studies at King’s College London. “There’s nothing that would rally people more than this.”

            Destroying Iranian cultural sites would also be similar to abuses that the U.S. has fiercely condemned in past administrations. The Taliban’s destruction of Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001 was widely condemned as an atrocity, and the U.S. state department founded special programs to address the Islamic State militant group’s targeting of Syrian and Iraqi cultural and religious sites. It would also weaken international courts’ attempts to establish stronger norms around forbidding the destruction of cultural sites, which has increased in recent years with the International Criminal Court’s prosecution and conviction of an Al Qaeda-linked militant who organized the destruction of Muslim shrines in Mali.

            Iran has 22 cultural sites which the United Nations cultural body, UNESCO, has labeled as protected on their world heritage list ― some of which have stood for thousands of years and represent world-renowned examples of art, architecture and engineering.

            “A lot of these things are irreplaceable, not just irreplaceable in the physical sense but in terms of a sense of loss of dignity, in the sense of belonging and community,” Cheng said.

            “You can’t really fix that, and all that really does is cause long-term hatred and resentment. It’s the opposite of what the U.S. would want in terms of eventually trying to normalize U.S.-Iran relations,” she said.
            _____________

            Gotta love the deterrent value of having to backtrack on your bullshit.

            I'm guessing that somebody explained to Trump, using small words and crayons, exactly what happens to war criminals.
            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

            Comment


            • Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles from its territory against at least two Iraqi facilities hosting U.S.-led coalition personnel at about 1:30 a.m. (2230 GMT), the U.S. military said.
              U.S. President Donald Trump said in a tweet late on Tuesday that an assessment of casualties and damage from the strikes was under way and that he would make a statement on Wednesday morning.
              All is well!” Trump, who visited the al-Asad air base in December 2018, said in the Twitter post.
              I feel much relieved.

              Source
              In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

              Leibniz

              Comment


              • No casualties reported (Allied, American, nor Iraqi).
                Chimo

                Comment


                • Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                  No casualties reported (Allied, American, nor Iraqi).
                  Sir, is that attributable to early warning systems allowing personnel enough time to seek shelter?

                  Looks like Iran lucked out this time.
                  “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                    Sir, is that attributable to early warning systems allowing personnel enough time to seek shelter?
                    The DOD stated that all personel were in shelters long before impact.

                    However, I like to see the AAR of this. At least two of the missiles missed the bases completely. I would like to know if they were landing around the barracks or all over the place.

                    Something to tell Iran. The US detected their launches.
                    Chimo

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                      The DOD stated that all personel were in shelters long before impact.

                      However, I like to see the AAR of this. At least two of the missiles missed the bases completely. I would like to know if they were landing around the barracks or all over the place.

                      Something to tell Iran. The US detected their launches.
                      I wonder if they were deliberately trying to miss, or at least keep the impact points confined to open areas without any actual manned infrastructure.
                      “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                        I never said I didn't buy deterrence. I said If The Threat Isn't CREDIBLE. Threats by an American president to commit war crimes are not credible because the American Armed Forces are not about to fulfill such unlawful orders.
                        What's to comprehend about Donald Trump casually threatening atrocities upon Iran?
                        It's supposed to reassure people around the world, including Americans, that the rest of the United States hasn't gone completely insane, unlike the lunatic in the White House.
                        This conversation has been hijacked. More emphaisis has been placed on cultural and the number 52 has been entirely forgotten. Hello!

                        Leave the cultural sites out. You are still left with the number 52

                        Credible deterrent or not ?


                        Sure, right up until that unpredictability backs the Iranians into a corner and they feel they have no choice but to "go for broke".
                        No need to 'go for broke' when he informs you before hand of the consequences. yes ?

                        It will stay low intensity only because the Iranians won't want it a full-blown conventional war with the United States. That has nothing to do with Donald Trump waving his tiny dick around on Twitter.
                        Not waving his dick around, doing his job

                        Iran would like to break sanctions. If they resort to terrorism then that tightens them.

                        So they cannot go conventional or sub-conventional. Yet they have to respond somehow or lose face with their people. The problem is making it commensurate. This is harder than most people think. All i've been hearing for the last few days is how resolute this action will be and its coming.

                        What i'm hearing now is they will take their time. They will not do anything that will make Trump look good. Not present him with easy choices to target.

                        What Iranian actions have taken place so far ?

                        They tried to get the Iraqi parliament to eject Americans forces there. Not got very far. A regiment of rangers is arriving.

                        They will want to do something that damages Trump chances of winning re-election.

                        Republicans better make sure their email servers are secure. There will be cyber snooping going around to find any and all dirt on Trump.

                        Next administration will be more amenable.
                        Last edited by Double Edge; 08 Jan 20,, 09:22.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by ambidex View Post
                          I am here for India and what we can learn from this.
                          I know he's no longer here, but this is the single funniest thing I've read on WAB for years.
                          sigpic

                          Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
                            I feel much relieved.

                            Source
                            Iranian officials said Tehran did not want a war and its strikes “concluded” its response to Friday’s killing of Qassem Soleimani, a powerful general whose burial after days of mourning was completed around the time of the missile launches. Iranian television showed mourners celebrating the attack.
                            Eh ? is that it

                            Iranian state television said 80 “American terrorists” had been killed and U.S. helicopters and military equipment damaged. It did not provide evidence of how it obtained that information.
                            That's what the Iranian people will believe. No opposition party in Iran to play spoilsport demanding evidence.

                            Iranian television reported an official in the supreme leader’s office as saying the missile attacks were the “weakest” of several retaliation scenarios. It quoted another source saying Iran had lined up 100 other potential targets.
                            So there will be more to come then
                            Last edited by Double Edge; 08 Jan 20,, 10:02.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                              I wonder if they were deliberately trying to miss, or at least keep the impact points confined to open areas without any actual manned infrastructure.
                              Unless more strikes materialise in the future i'm thinking this was for domestic consumption. Quick response to keep the people quiet.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                                The DOD stated that all personel were in shelters long before impact.
                                Not seeing that in their latest bulletin
                                https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Rel...tacks-in-iraq/

                                Was it from a news report ? Found it

                                How to detect missile launches according to this article

                                The US can detect missile launch plumes using the Defense Support Program and SBIRS (Space Based Infrared System) satellites. A missile’s launch point can further be calculated through Army Patriot radar systems, which calculate the point of origin based on the missiles’ flight path.
                                That's how

                                However, I like to see the AAR of this. At least two of the missiles missed the bases completely. I would like to know if they were landing around the barracks or all over the place.

                                Something to tell Iran. The US detected their launches.
                                Very good, that would explain every one being in the shelter long before impact

                                Joke with Iran/China/NK kind of ballistic missiles is safest place to be is where they are aimed at. They can off target anywhere from 500m up to a km.
                                Last edited by Double Edge; 08 Jan 20,, 13:04.

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