Yeah, my Firebird has Throttle Body Injection, too. In factory form, it's not the best for power production, but it's definitely reliable. Automotive jokes aside, I've heard some of my more paranoid friends saying that all of this Iran stuff is just a big ruse being orchestrated by interests in the US to ultimately get control of Iran's oil reserves. Coincidentally, these are the same sort of people who say that 9/11 was an inside job to invade Iraq. What do you smart people think?
For those not lucky enough to have TBIs, sometimes you gotta make the best out of bad situation: Spoiler
The most important thing to remember is that the people making these decisions are a bunch of schmucks. Case in point. Here is a senior State Department official on background.
I haven't been following this to closely, but isn't this the approximate timeline? Iran kills a US contractor. US retaliates and drone strikes kill 25 Iranians Iranians retaliate and fuck up our embassy in Iraq for days on end. US retaliates and blows up one of their generals. I thought Iraq and Iran hated each other, why are Iranians in Iraq? We need to pull out of the entire middle east...all aid, bases, weapons sales, everything. Everyone there hates each other and has for thousands of years, let them deal with each other and figure their own shit out.
Iran also had a vested interest in having ISIS defeated so that cancer wouldnt spread further across the Middle East. So the Iranian military and Hezbollah started funding resistance fighters in Iraq about the same time we were. The Obama Admin tried to have an enemy-of-my-enemy type of relationship because of it, but Iran was not having it and threatened to shoot at any American forces their military came across. After ISIS was basically defeated, Iran basically kept operations going and started subjugating the Iraqis they didnt like in the power vacuum.
To add to that Iran are one of the reasons behind the massive protests in Iraq over the last few months and most likely supporting the snipers that are taking out the protesters. Vox has a podcast called Worldy that goes into the Iran/Iraq situation pretty good. I'm not sure how many hold the same belief but the way I see it nearly every move in that area is making things worse, the US should cut the losses and run, leave them to sort out their own issues. The area has been a complete quagmire ever since the Brits and French divided the area up into partitions designed to keep it unstable. This article gives a brief overview https://www.mic.com/articles/91071/how-the-british-screwed-up-the-middle-east-in-10-classic-cartoons
I don't really see a problem with it. You hit me, I'm going to hit back much harder. So it's probably in your best interest to not hit me. I'm pretty sure it's the truth too.
Aside from the fact that it's Trump's usual unhinged bluster that may or may not represent actual policy, there's the fact that deliberately attacking cultural sites is a war crime.
Is attacking a civilian contractor ok? Attacking an embassy? If there are rules,we all have to play by them. If you hit someone outside the rules you can pretty much expect to be hit back with a brick upside the head.
There's a wide range of proportionate and disproportionate responses before you get to "Yeah, we're going to commit a bunch of war crimes to teach you a lesson." You've gone from saying we should get out of the entire ME to endorsing a campaign of war crimes. That's a pretty good encapsulation of how vacuous the MAGA foreign policy is.
I'm just waiting for the inevitable tweet where he links the impeachment to the Iran escalation and either admits it's actually a distraction, or acts like a victim by saying "How can the do nothing democrats led by Crazy Nancy and Cryin' Chuck impeach a president who is doing so much to defend this country?" Probably belongs in the other thread tbh.
Considering he just said that he killed the guy as retaliation and not in response to an imminent threat, you're probably right. It's amazing to watch people trust the guy who lies about fucking everything and simply take him at his word about all of this.
He’s basically applying the same strategy with Iran that he used with North Korea. The issues with Iran and the ME go far deeper than some third generation dictator.
Trump: "some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD" Pompeo: "I’ve seen what we are planning in terms of the target set. I’m sure the Department of Defense is continuing to develop options. The American people should know that every target that we strike will be a lawful target, and it will be a target designed with a singular mission, of protecting and defending America." Trump: "They're allowed to kill our people, they're allowed to torture and maim our people, they're allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people, and we're not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn't work that way." This tweet is evergreen: https://twitter.com/evilsharkey/status/864548377660317696
The cult of personality around Trump is just downright fascinating...until you get to actual penises, then you just have to worry. Gross. Iran will learn the same lesson the NK's learned: all irrelevant if you got them nukes. With a functioning State department we can work with these regimes to steer them away from that path. Without it.... Their response will not likely be direct action, but a resumption of the things we spent decades and billions to get them not to do: nuclear proliferation, state-sponsored terrorism, and spreading anti-Western propaganda. Folks worried about getting bombed by Iran in Indiana make me giggle.
This reminds me of post-9/11 when residents of Des fuckin' Moines or some such place would accuse New Yorkers of being unAmerican and weak in the face of terrorism. Like who do you think is actually on a terrorist's target list, the skyscraper where the New Yorker works or the grain silo in Iowa?