Cancel all previous excuses
Take a moment to feel compassion for a guy who wants to be a criminal genius but is constantly hampered in his quest by a stupidity so profound it can’t be measured. Poor schmuck can’t keep his story straight from one day to the next.
President Donald Trump authorized the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani seven months ago if Iran’s increased aggression resulted in the death of an American, according to five current and former senior administration officials.
The presidential directive in June came with the condition that Trump would have final signoff on any specific operation to kill Soleimani, officials said.
Which isn’t much of a condition, because how likely is it that Trump would ever say no?
That decision explains why assassinating Soleimani was on the menu of options that the military presented to Trump two weeks ago for responding to an attack by Iranian proxies in Iraq, in which a U.S. contractor was killed and four U.S. service members were wounded, the officials said.
The timing, however, could undermine the Trump administration’s stated justification for ordering the U.S. drone strike that killed Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3. Officials have said Soleimani, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, was planning imminent attacks on Americans and had to be stopped.
After Iran shot down a U.S. drone in June, John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser at the time, urged Trump to retaliate by signing off on an operation to kill Soleimani, officials said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also wanted Trump to authorize the assassination, officials said.
They destroy a piece of our hardware, we assassinate one of their top guys. It’s the American way. It’s interesting that in this case Trump was slightly less murder-happy than Bolton and Pompeo: he said no, only if they kill one of ours.
But he’s more casual about it now.
“We get to assassinate him because of his horrible past!”
Charles Pierce at Esquire points out that this makes Trump’s previous claims a pack of lies.
So the “imminent attacks” story was bullshit. The “imminent attacks on four embassies” were bullshit. According to his own Secretary of Defense, the intelligence didn’t support either of those conclusions—which means either that the SecDef is oblivious, or his boss is. In any event, the line now is that Qasem Soleimani was a bad guy who deserved to die in a tower of flame and only El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago had the giant presidential cojones to rain down death from above. You can’t have somebody running war powers like this. Also, you can’t have someone making up attacks, imminent or eminent, because he can’t think of anything else to say to Laura Ingraham.
We can’t but we do.
…says the man with the horrible past (and hideous present).
I see Barr has essentially said ‘meh, if someone has done something in the past, we don’t need to know when they’re going to do it again to claim an imminent threat’. To paraphrase Ken White, the Government lies, then claims the lie is irrelevant.
I find the left’s take on this situation rather depressing. All that matters is that America in general, and Trump in particular, are horrible warmongers. The fact that Soleimani’s job was to advance Iran’s goal of creating client states in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon through violence, is irrelevant. He did this by forming, arming, training and advising groups of religious fanatics. We call them militias. Without Soleimani’s (and Putin’s) help, Assad would have likely struggled to hold on to Syria. But he did manage to hold on, by killing upwards of half a million people, including thousands tortured and starved to death in prisons.
The original line was that Trump was trying to start a war with Iran in order to distract from the impeachment. Or, at the very least, that this was an irresponsible act that would inevitably lead to escalation and probably outright war. In some circles, it has only been through the actions of the peace-loving Iranians that war has been averted. Trump tried to start a war, but the Iranians wouldn’t let him.
But there has been no escalation. Iran fired a few missiles that did no damage. America didn’t respond. Some poor schmuck commanding an AA battery in Tehran accidently shot down a passenger jet killing 176 people. A tragedy, but it’s absurd to claim that Trump is responsible. The reason not much happened is that the Iranian regime has its own goals and strategy. It is not programmed simply to respond to what the US does. There are even reports that the ayatollahs aren’t that sad to see the back of Soleimani. That he was a bit to keen to push himself forward as a future leader. Who knows?
Of course there will be future incidents between the Iranians and Americans in Iraq. Both are trying to influence its future direction. There’s a lot at stake. Hopefully the future Iraq will be more like the liberal, democratic US and less like theocratic Iran, which has recently murdered 1500 of its citizen for protesting against theocracy. But there is no guarantee that it will. A look around the Arab world doesn’t give much cause for hope. (Any problems in that region are, of course, the result of imperialism/colonialism/US foreign policy/racism, which are probably all manifestations of whiteness). But without the use of some military force by the US, Iran will certainly win.
It seems to me the most likely explanation is that the US wanted to send a message to Iran. Stop missile attacks on our facilities, don’t attack our embassy, or there will be consequences. They chose to do that by killing a war criminal, much to the delight of many Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians and Lebanese.
And now it’s all about the US having no intelligence that Soleimani was planning future attacks on US interests in Iraq. Well, it’s always possible that Soleimani came to Baghdad for the waters, but personally, I’m sceptical.
And yes, politicians tell lies.
So why lie?
I don’t know. But it certainly sounds good to say you’re preventing an imminent attack. It could also be incompetence. Perhaps letting the Iranians know that the US had intelligence about their future plans was not supposed to be divulged.
And why lie if your intention is to start a war?
I’ve no idea, but I wasn’t the one begging the question.
“The left’s” take? You think the right is universally in favor of Trump’s committing random assassinations whenever the impulse takes him?
I think many conservatives would be insulted to hear that they approve of war crimes and extrajudicial murders.
So neither of us knows. Which is hardly surprising considering we are privy to so little information.
I don’t see how I was begging the question. I was trying to point out, among other things, that I don’t think “Trump’s trying to start a war” is the most likely explanation for what happened, and that the subsequent barrage of contradictory information from the administration doesn’t necessarily add any weight to that hypothesis.
I might be wrong, of course.
That is an almost perfect example of question-begging.
I asked “why lie at all?” and you seem to feel that “why lie if your intention is to start a war?” is remotely equivalent.
That question has never been so begged.
Latsot.
My understanding of begging the question is that it occurs when an argument’s premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. (Copy and paste). So I don’t think I begged the question. I suppose you could accuse me of whataboutery, but if your asking why lie given my take, it seems perfectly reasonable to ask why lie given your’s.
Ophelia.
No, I don’t think that. Clearly there is a range of views across the political spectrum, and the legality and the consequences of the action are certainly debatable. I was trying to point out that I think the rhetoric from much of the left is overblown. Killing someone like Soleimani is unlikely to lead to a rash of extrajudicial killings and that the consequences of the action are unlikely to be dire.
I also wanted to point out that the only reason “the left” seems to have an interest in this story is that it provides a cudgel with which to bash Trump. Those who rarely show any interest in events in the middle east were falling over themselves to say how terrible it all was and how Trump was leading the US to war. We saw something similar when the US moved its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. It would be disastrous for peace in the region. Nothing much happened. So those predictions were wrong. I think they were wrong in this case too. And I think they’re wrong for the same reason. “The left’s” (not unreasonable) hatred of Trump.
Which is exactly what you did as I made perfectly clear. The answers to the questions:
Why lie at all? and
Why lie if
are obviously different. The first is a genuine enquiry. The second seeks only answers that fulfil the caveat, a begged question.
My original question still stands: why lie at all? What is to be gained by Trump and his cronies from lying about this if it is all as straightforward as you insist?
Have a look at what you just wrote and hang your head in shame.
You’re the sole arbiter of “reasons” “the left” do stuff, are you? You are intimately aware of which people “show interest” in what you say they do, are you? Because that is precisely the sort of crap you’ve just claimed. That’s the unsupported premise of your telling-off of people you don’t like which doesn’t even support your batshit conclusion.
Personally, I can’t think of a single reason to not hate Trump. We know for a fact that he lies about everything. We know for a fact that he lies to help himself and his self only. We know for a fact that he is the worst kind of person that has ever existed. That is not begging any questions, it’s a matter of factual record. What the fuck is your point?
Latest. (Sorry, it keeps autocorrecting and I can’t make it stop.)
Your original question was what I tried to answer. I said I did’t know. I offered a couple of suggestions, but I don’t know the answer. You indicated you didn’t either.
I didn’t assume an answer when I asked “Why lie if…”. If you’re asking “Why lie at all?”, surely it’s necessary to look at the the different situations that might obtain. And my answers (speculations, not answers) don’t just fulfil the caveat, they could apply regardless of the “ifs”.
And I’m certainly not insisting it’s straightforward. It’s anything but.
Oh come on, Carmichael, none of that is true.
You didn’t try to answer my original question, did you? You ‘answered’ it by qualifying a completely different question by plastering it with bullshit.
You can pretend all you like that there’s no difference between asking a proper question and asking a loaded question but nobody honest will agree.
I doubt you’ll find anyone here dishonest enough to do that.
I understand. Thanks for being entirely honest and sincere and not lying at all. Sincerely, I really mean it. If I say so, nobody gets to contradict me, right? It’s odd that you can’t correct some bits of text but you can add others to explain your inability to correct but that’s how this shit works. What the fuck ever, dude.
Not getting a lot of love here.
No, I’m not the sole arbiter of anything, nor am I a mind reader. I’m expressing my views on the situation, based on my reading.
I am on board with your views on Trump. I am not defending him. My point is that I think “the left” is wrong in this particular instance. I think it unlikely that Trump was trying to start a war. I think “the left” is wrong here, largely because it is failing to see the bigger picture, due to its feelings towards Trump. I also think that “the left”, in general, pays little attention to the suffering of Iranians and those affected by the actions of the Iranian regime.
But it’s now very late and I need to go to bed.
And this has been surprisingly stressful!
Aw, poor baby. Let’s reflect. If you hadn’t told millions of people why they were wrong to think the things you yourself decided they think, perhaps you wouldn’t be so stressed.
But honestly, if you’re stressed by a nobody like me pointing out obvious failings in your weirdly confident bullsshit assertions, perhaps you should try thinking instead of typing.
OK. One more comment before bed. I saw your replies after posting.
I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ve have tried to be as honest as I can, and to express myself as clearly as I can.
I find it a bit sad that you leap to conclusions about me based on our brief exchange, but just the way it goes, I guess.
Anyway, have a good night, or day, depending where you are.
I didn’t see #17, but it’s definitely bed time now.
OK, Carmichael, let’s all pretend you’re being honest.
Let’s forget that you’ve taken it upon yourself to decide and state emphatically that “the left” as you describe it thinks the various things you say “it” does, whatever that can possibly mean.
Let’s forget that you pretend not to understand why loaded questions are different to actual questions. Scratch your fucking head and caper about like a zombie: absolutely nobody on the planet believes you.
Let’s pretend that you somehow couldn’t fangle the autocorrect of my username while immediately adding an explanation in the very same text field about why you couldn’t. Are you fucking serious? I don’t care in any way if you get my name wrong, but what sort of intelligence do you imagine you are insulting with this passive-aggressive crap? My cat knows about four words. But she knows a dickhead when she sees one.
That escalated quickly!
Carmichael, I just think talking about this in terms of “the left” misses the mark completely. Most of what’s wrong with Trump is moral rather than political, and as I mentioned, he’s anathema to many people on the right. You’re treating “anti-Trump” and “the left” as synonymous, and they’re not. No, saying Trump can’t decide to murder people abroad all on his own is not specific to the left, and no, saying that is not “a stick to beat him with” – it’s a fairly ordinary rule, and Trump isn’t a dictator who gets to ignore all the rules.
It sure did escalate! I just read Bruce Gorton’s guest post. I think it may have some relevance here.
No point rehashing the whole argument. I still think what I wrote has some merit, but others are free to disagree.
I think what’s wrong with Trump is moral (he’s a corrupt and deeply unpleasant person), political (he’s an incompetent leader with many bad policies) and now, it seems, medical (some of his speeches suggest some serious cognitive impairment).
Enjoy your day.
I REGRET NOTHING!
Carmichael was being dishonest and transparently so. Pisses me all the way off but it isn’t my blog, perhaps not my place to tell people off.
I came here for the bad behaviour and I stand by it. I’ll be nice tomorrow, probably.
NO REGRET INVOICE WAS ISSUED.
But I don’t think so about the dishonesty, I think it’s a matter of different starting premises and different language styles, i.e. talking past each other.
Fair enough.
For what it’s worth, I still think Carmichael was being dishonest but I was unnecessarily hostile for which I apologise. Sorry, Carmichael.