Baghdad embassy attack and response


NeuroTypical
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8 hours ago, Traveler said:

I agree with @Scott - We are bigger, stronger and can easily take out a piranha - but it is not a good idea to have your finger in a tank with a piranha to see what will happen next - and then when the piranha attacks - get upset about it.

 

The Traveler

I may be mistaken... but was the piranha jumping out of the tank biting us? And we just plucked a tooth out of it?

I mean of course that, hasn’t Iran been attacking the US prior to this? You know, their raid attack/storming of the US Embassy’s in Iraq and Baghdad, and the killing of an American contractor?

and this is ignoring all the horrible acts that Soleimani has done on non-American lives and the things he had done indirectly to the US.

Am I wrong to think that this wasn’t at least justified?

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31 minutes ago, Fether said:

I may be mistaken... but was the piranha jumping out of the tank biting us? And we just plucked a tooth out of it?

I mean of course that, hasn’t Iran been attacking the US prior to this? You know, their raid attack/storming of the US Embassy’s in Iraq and Baghdad, and the killing of an American contractor?

and this is ignoring all the horrible acts that Soleimani has done on non-American lives and the things he had done indirectly to the US.

Am I wrong to think that this wasn’t at least justified?

Senators Lee and Paul seem to have thought that the justifications the administration offered the Senate yesterday were insufficient, though it seems we don’t have a lot of detail about that briefing.

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Current round of geopolitical drama is all over except for the yelling.  Neither side wanted a war, it became a game to de-escalate while saving face.

Iran lobbed some missiles at us, after quietly getting 90 minutes warning to us.  They get to claim they've struck an overpowering blow against the great satan and killed many Americans.  Trump gave a big press conference re-emphasizing no nukes for Iran, dismissing the missile attack as minimal with no loss of US life.   All done for this round.

As the dust settles, I see Trump as having sent a clear message - don't screw with our embassies or else.  I don't expect anything to really change in the region, I'm fully expecting Iran to stop being so obvious and direct, and return to working through third parties, as we are. 

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2 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Senators Lee and Paul seem to have thought that the justifications the administration offered the Senate yesterday were insufficient, though it seems we don’t have a lot of detail about that briefing.

Senators Lee and Paul thinks the Soleimani killing is disproportionate to the preceding events and they don't believe Pompeo's statement that Soleimani was plotting more aggressions against US lives.  Paul is anti-war (I'll expand on my sentiments to this below) and he is of the position that killing Soleimani will drive Iran even farther into war (he is proven wrong as of yesterday).

On Paul - this is the reason I didn't support Ron Paul even as I am hoping for an anti-war US President - he is too extreme in his isolationist stances and his son mirrors him.  For Paul, if the missile is not headed into the border, it's not a US problem.  I mostly agree with this sentiment but I prefer to leave room for the plain and basic reality that there are situations that ONLY USA-involvement can resolve.  This does not infer that I believe the Soleimani killing is proportionate to the preceding events.  I simply leave the door open for the possibility that taking out a Queen in a chess game is the fastest way to peace so that everybody can go home.

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3 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Senators Lee and Paul seem to have thought that the justifications the administration offered the Senate yesterday were insufficient, though it seems we don’t have a lot of detail about that briefing.

It's unfortunate that we don't know what was said.  But what I gleaned from Sen Lee's comments was that the White House never actually said what the "imminent threat" was.  That's worse than "insufficient". It was non-existent.  That's bad.

I'm saying this as a Trump supporter.  He should have shared the intelligence outlining the imminent threat with as many senators as had sufficient security clearance.  While the President has a LOT of discretion, there needs to be oversight. And the properly appointed (and security cleared) Senators are the most appropriate individuals to provide that oversight.

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10 minutes ago, Mores said:

It's unfortunate that we don't know what was said.  But what I gleaned from Sen Lee's comments was that the White House never actually said what the "imminent threat" was.  That's worse than "insufficient". It was non-existent.  That's bad.

This is not true.  Pompeo and Esper provided a confidential briefing of the threats to appropriate Congressional committees.  Paul and Lee treated it like the intelligence claims that "Hussein had weapons of mass destruction" - they didn't trust it until they get further proof.  Understandable position.  But it's not non-existent.

 

10 minutes ago, Mores said:

I'm saying this as a Trump supporter.  He should have shared the intelligence outlining the imminent threat with as many senators as had sufficient security clearance.  While the President has a LOT of discretion, there needs to be oversight. And the properly appointed (and security cleared) Senators are the most appropriate individuals to provide that oversight.

The position the WH held was that the Soleimani strike was a defensive strike.  Defensive strikes do not require Congressional approval.  It simply requires Congressional notification within 48 hours - which the WH complied with.

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9 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

This is not true.  Pompeo and Esper provided a confidential briefing of the threats to appropriate Congressional committees.  Paul and Lee treated it like the intelligence claims that "Hussein had weapons of mass destruction" - they didn't trust it until they get further proof.  Understandable position.  But it's not non-existent.

Do you have transcripts of what was said in that briefing?  I don't.  If you have them, I'd like to see them.

Shy of that, I'm taking Sen Lee at his word that they said essentially NOTHING that they can use to actually "assess" the situation and provide appropriate oversight.  Lacking sufficient information is cause to cry foul.

It's like that person asking for advice the other day. "I had revelation that I'm to violate my marital covenants."  OH!!! Revelation!!! OK.  Sounds good.

"We were retaliating with a defensive strike due to imminent threats".  OH!!! Defensive!  Imminent threat!!! OK. Sounds good.

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You should take the job.

Why?

Because it would be a good idea.

OH!! Good idea.  OK.  Sounds good.

Does this really cross the "insufficient" vs non-existent threshold with you?

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7 minutes ago, Mores said:

Do you have transcripts of what was said in that briefing?  I don't.  If you have them, I'd like to see them.

No.  It's classified.

 

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Shy of that, I'm taking Sen Lee at his word that they said essentially NOTHING that they can use to actually "assess" the situation and provide appropriate oversight.  Lacking sufficient information is cause to cry foul.

Sure.  You can say that what Congress got, Lee took as "amounts to nothing".  I interpreted your use of Nothing as - the WH provided nothing.

 

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It's like that person asking for advice the other day. "I had revelation that I'm to violate my marital covenants."  OH!!! Revelation!!! OK.  Sounds good.

"We were retaliating with a defensive strike due to imminent threats".  OH!!! Defensive!  Imminent threat!!! OK. Sounds good.

Does this really cross the "insufficient" vs non-existent threshold with you?

We are not in a position to decide that.  We are not privy to that information. 

What we do know is that Iranian aggression has been escalating and Soleimani designed most of it including the attack on the Embassy.  There's no reason for me to believe he would simply stop there.

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2 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

No.  It's classified.

So, you don't know any better than I do about how credible the "imminent threat" was.

2 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Sure.  You can say that what Congress got, Lee took as "amounts to nothing".  I interpreted your use of Nothing as - the WH provided nothing.

Nothing substantive = nothing.  They may as well as said,"It was necessary, trust us."

2 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

We are not in a position to decide that.  We are not privy to that information. 

What we do know is that Iranian aggression has been escalating and Soleimani designed most of it including the attack on the Embassy.  There's no reason for me to believe he would simply stop there.

Exactly.  We DON'T KNOW.  And I'm ok as a private citizen not knowing.  I'd really LIKE to see that there is proper oversight over when the President uses the powers of the military.

That said, I largely agree with the overall outcome (thus far).  We'll see about longer term ramifications later.

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1 minute ago, Mores said:

So, you don't know any better than I do about how credible the "imminent threat" was.

As is the norm.

 

1 minute ago, Mores said:

Nothing substantive = nothing.  They may as well as said,"It was necessary, trust us."

Exactly.  We DON'T KNOW.  And I'm ok as a private citizen not knowing.  I'd really LIKE to see that there is proper oversight over when the President uses the powers of the military.

That is Paul and Lee's opinion on the matter.  There are 533 other Congress people - each with their own opinion on the contents of the report.  We can believe who we choose to believe.  I choose to believe none of them.  I simply deduce from what we already know - and that deduction is the plain and simple fact that Iran has been escalating aggression, especially within the last year.  So - if Trump would have killed Soleimani BEFORE the Embassy attack, citing the Embassy attack as the imminent threat, I wouldn't say at all that it was Nothing.  I have no reason to believe that Soleimani's plans stop at the Embassy.

 

1 minute ago, Mores said:

 

That said, I largely agree with the overall outcome (thus far).  We'll see about longer term ramifications later.

I'm not on that level yet.  I'm still on the "we'll see" stage.  It's too soon to make a proper assessment.

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7 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

That is Paul and Lee's opinion on the matter.  There are 533 other Congress people - each with their own opinion on the contents of the report.  We can believe who we choose to believe.  I choose to believe none of them.

That's your right.  But have you heard ANYONE in Congress say that the White House provided their evidence for the conclusion that we were under "imminent threat"?

I'm sincerely asking.  I don't read NEARLY as much news as you.  But you seem to be quite accepting of Trump.  I like a lot of what Trump is doing.  But we need to have some sort of consensus in government on this matter.  NO ONE should have unbridled power like that.

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I'm not on that level yet.  I'm still on the "we'll see" stage.  It's too soon to make a proper assessment.

I guess you didn't really read my statements very thoroughly.  This is pretty much what I said.

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13 minutes ago, Mores said:

That's your right.  But have you heard ANYONE in Congress say that the White House provided their evidence for the conclusion that we were under "imminent threat"?

I'm sincerely asking.  I don't read NEARLY as much news as you.  But you seem to be quite accepting of Trump.  I like a lot of what Trump is doing.  But we need to have some sort of concensus in government.  NO ONE should have unbridled power like that.

Yes.  Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan, many others have made public statements and tweets (yes, tweets are official records now).

Cruz is even preparing a Senate resolution to praise Trump for the Soleimani strike (same vein as the resolution the Senate passed praising Obama for the bin Laden strike).

 

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I guess you didn't really read my statements very thoroughly.  This is pretty much what I said.

What you said was "I largely agree with the overall outcome (thus far)".  I don't.  It's too soon for me to say I agree with the overall outcome thus far.  For example - Soleimani has vast support underground.  We don't know who they are.  Maybe Trump knows.  At least with Soleimani these movements are predictable (to the extent I understand them - which is not much admittedly).  Right now, the underground, in my view, is unpredictable.  The Philippines is a hotbed of these cells and we're on high alert.  We'll see how this plays out.

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7 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Yes.  Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan, many others have made public statements and tweets (yes, tweets are official records now).

Could you provide links or something?  I don't do twitter, so I have no way of looking that up myself.

Quote

What you said was "I largely agree with the overall outcome (thus far)".  I don't.  It's too soon for me to say I agree with the overall outcome thus far.  

I keep forgetting that every once in a while your grasp of English misses subtleties.

My appeasement at the outcome (thus far) means that as far as we can see today, at this moment, all the results tallied thus far without consideration for future ramifications and yet to be found information...  That was the whole reason for adding the parenthetical.

Then I went on to say that we'll have to wait to see how this works out later.

If you want to keep disagreeing with someone who apparently agrees with you, that's your right.  But I don't really see the point.

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1 minute ago, Mores said:

Could you provide links or something?  I don't do twitter, so I have no way of looking that up myself.

I keep forgetting that every once in a while your grasp of English misses subtleties.

My appeasement at the outcome (thus far) means that as far as we can see today, at this moment, all the results tallied thus far without consideration for future ramifications and yet to be found information...  That was the whole reason for adding the parenthetical.

Then I went on to say that we'll have to wait to see how this works out later.

If you want to keep disagreeing with someone who apparently agrees with you, that's your right.  But I don't really see the point.

I edited my post.  I added some details to explain more.

Here's the news article on Cruz's resolution.  Fox News broke the story:  https://thetexan.news/sen-cruz-to-introduce-resolution-honoring-americans-involved-in-mission-that-killed-soleimani/  

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58 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

I edited my post.  I added some details to explain more.

Here's the news article on Cruz's resolution.  Fox News broke the story:  https://thetexan.news/sen-cruz-to-introduce-resolution-honoring-americans-involved-in-mission-that-killed-soleimani/  

Well, it didn't really go over what was discussed in the briefing.  And the article didn't say that the resolution had nothing to do with the justification for the retaliation.

Here's my take.

It appears to be a retaliation for the Iranian backed attack that we have documented.  If that is so, no problem.  We're good.  Here's the problem.

  • Nothing has been said that the executive branch showed said intel to Congress.  Not necessarily wrong.  But this lack of transparency is what I hated about Obama.  And it is antithetical to what I've come to see in Trump (which I had thus far admired).
  • If he had stuck with that "retaliation" rationale that he started with, it would have been ok.  But he has departed from that and said that he was doing a preventative measure for FUTURE or PLANNED attacks.  If the evidence is strong enough, and the danger truly is imminent, I think we're justified.  And the President can make that call in the moment of urgency.  That is part of executive privilege.  But such decisions (if serious enough) need to be reviewed by Congress at some level.  And simply saying "trust me, I'm right" is not oversight.
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1 hour ago, anatess2 said:

That is Paul and Lee's opinion on the matter.  There are 533 other Congress people - each with their own opinion on the contents of the report.

I am not concerned about the opinions of most of the Demoncraps, who are liars. And I am not very concerned with the opinions of most of the Repugnantans, who care more about politics and reelection than anything else. But I am concerned about that relatively small population of mostly Republican representatives that care about fulfilling their Constitutional duties. Paul and Lee appear to be among that select group, and they both say that they were given no useful information. I find that to be a real reason for concern.

Even if Trump is doing the right thing, if he's doing it without the needed Congressional oversight, then that is subversive and will undoubtedly come back to haunt us, if not with Trump than with his successor or whoever the next Demoncrap president is.

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2 minutes ago, Vort said:

I am not concerned about the opinions of most of the Demoncraps, who are liars. And I am not very concerned with the opinions of most of the Repugnantans, who care more about politics and reelection than anything else. But I am concerned about that relatively small population of mostly Republican representatives that care about fulfilling their Constitutional duties. Paul and Lee appear to be among that select group, and they both say that they were given no useful information. I find that to be a real reason for concern.

Even if Trump is doing the right thing, if he's doing it without the needed Congressional oversight, then that is subversive and will undoubtedly come back to haunt us, if not with Trump than with his successor or whoever the next Demoncrap president is.

I agree with you on the select group.  But even among the select group, the ideology driving their perspectives is relatively clear.  Paul and Lee don't stand alone in that select group.  I'm not sure if you agree about these Republicans, but Ted Cruz and Jim Jordan (although he's not in the Senate) would be counted as stalwart members of that select group, yes?  How about Ben Sasse in the Senate?  They're not libertarians like Paul but they're libertarian-leaning conservatives, yes?

And about Congressional oversight - I'd agree with you if the DoD evaded Congressional Oversight.  They didn't.  They followed Congressional rules of reporting within 48 hours after a strike.  So, it's not whether the WH evaded Congressional Oversight.  The Oversight is happening - Lee and Paul's positions juxtaposed with Cruz and Sasse's positions is part of that Oversight.

 

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2 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

I'm not sure if you agree about these Republicans, but Ted Cruz and Jim Jordan (although he's not in the Senate) would be counted as stalwart members of that select group, yes?  How about Ben Sasse in the Senate?  They're not libertarians like Paul but they're libertarian-leaning conservatives, yes?

Did Cruz, Jordan, and Sasse state that they were satisfied with the information provided? If so, I'll feel better than I did.

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59 minutes ago, Mores said:

Well, it didn't really go over what was discussed in the briefing.  And the article didn't say that the resolution had nothing to do with the justification for the retaliation.

Here's my take.

It appears to be a retaliation for the Iranian backed attack that we have documented.  If that is so, no problem.  We're good.  

There are 2 reasons the WH presented for the strike:

  • Soleimani orchestrated the attacks that killed the American contractor and the incident at the Embassy.
  • Soleimani orchestrated attacks set in the future.

The first bullet is clear.  But this is not the issue.  The issue is the 2nd bullet.  Without the 2nd bullet, Congress has the lee-way to take the position that Trump taking out Soleimani needed Congressional approval as they can claim that there is no imminent threat tied to Soleimani himself and that Soleimani's position in the Iran government puts acts against him as a declaration of war (needs Congressional approval).

Legally, this is questionable in my opinion because - Soleimani is not an official Iranian government personnel.  That's why he can bomb our Embassy and it's not an "official war with Iran".  Soleimani is a proxy.  I'm not really sure if a proxy widely known to be hired by a government is considered in the same standing as a government personnel.  In any case, that's the Congressional position at play.

 

59 minutes ago, Mores said:

Here's the problem.

  • Nothing has been said that the executive branch showed said intel to Congress.  Not necessarily wrong.  But this lack of transparency is what I hated about Obama.  And it is antithetical to what I've come to see in Trump (which I had thus far admired).

Agreed.

But I don't have reason to believe that Pompeo lied about his statement that the DoD complied with the 48-hour report to Congress.  And if they didn't, I don't believe Ted Cruz - who is a hard-nosed procedure guy, wouldn't say anything about it.

 

59 minutes ago, Mores said:
  • If he had stuck with that "retaliation" rationale that he started with, it would have been ok.  But he has departed from that and said that he was doing a preventative measure for FUTURE or PLANNED attacks.  If the evidence is strong enough, and the danger truly is imminent, I think we're justified.  And the President can make that call in the moment of urgency.  That is part of executive privilege.  But such decisions (if serious enough) need to be reviewed by Congress at some level.  And simply saying "trust me, I'm right" is not oversight.

I agree with the needed oversight.  But I'm not sure what you're looking for.  Obama also had Congressional oversight - he didn't just drone strike people and evade oversight by Congress regardless of what Brietbart says about it.  He complied with the 48-hour reporting requirement.  He even gave the added step of reporting every civilian casualty of his strikes (that Trump doesn't do except for those required by UN).  The thing is Congress just never questioned Obama about it - they rubber stamped his foreign policy basically. 

Bush also had oversight - Congress approved the Iraq invasion too under the intelligence report of weapons of mass destruction.  Lots of Congress people rejected the validity of the report (in the same way Paul and Lee are rejecting the validity of the DoD report on Soleimani) - but they were a minority.  Now, we find out the minority was right (or maybe they were still wrong - depends on what you believe about it, we're not privy to the underlying intelligence, so we're just basing our judgments on 20/20 hindsight) - still doesn't mean Bush didn't have Congressional oversight.

The "retaliation" rationale is still there.  That has not gone away.  As I've explained in the above, this is not what Congress is griping over.  And "trust me, I'm right" is not oversight - the DoD handing the report to Congress within 48 hours of the incident is oversight.  And it's good for Paul and Lee to question it in the same manner that it's good for Cruz and Sasse to support it.  We can get rid of all the Democrats as they're useless - Republicans can provide the congressional debate on their own.

Now, if what you're looking for is evidence that DoD sent the report to Congress, Pompeo stated this - I saw it on his interview with Fox.  He also issued a press statement.  You're just going to have to believe me because it will take me a while to hunt a video down as you're the first one that asked me to produce this.

 

 

 

Edited by anatess2
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16 minutes ago, Vort said:

Did Cruz, Jordan, and Sasse state that they were satisfied with the information provided? If so, I'll feel better than I did.

That's why I mentioned that resolution that Cruz is drafting.  Cruz, with Sasse's support, wants to put every Senator's feet on the fire to put their approval/disapproval of the strike on Congressional record.

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